Medicaid Poll: What would you like to see happen?

Have Medicaid fatigue yet? What would you like to see happen as the deadline of July 1 approaches?

Below the poll are a few of the latest Medicaid articles and there is a podcast to the right of this post with Senator Melanie Sojourner on the subject. Comments are welcome.

Related articles

• GUNN: Government cannot create prosperity.
• BROWN: Democrats proposal expands health insurance to Mississippians with reduced risks to the state.
• PLUNKETT: Dems latest Medicaid proposal: A lemon by any other name.
• PEP Talk Podcast: Dr. Randy Easterling discusses the pressure of Medicaid expansion on Mississippi’s doctors.
• Ethics Commission vote clears way for Medicaid special session.
• HARRISON: Lt. Gov. Reeves may be on Medicaid hot seat.
• Mississippi Democrats and Republicans restate the obvious in dueling resolutions on Medicaid. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
• Race-based study group attempts to sway states on Medicaid expansion with polling data. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)

WINFORD: Media too quick to judge Gov. Bryant’s comments on education and women in the workplace.

Isn’t it great when a politician makes some sort of gaffe and the public gets all worked up over it? Who doesn’t like when the media takes some words out of context, turns them on their head and then repeats them over and over until people are outraged and someone’s credibility is hurt?

In a Washington Post Live event about education and reform last week, Governor Phil Bryant discussed some steps that Mississippi was taking to improve the state’s education system as well as issues surrounding the nation’s education as a whole.

After talking about many issues, causes and symptoms, the moderator asked Bryant why the nation’s system was so mediocre. Bryant responded by saying that it started when “both parents started working, and the mom is in the workplace.” This raised the ire of many in the media, including many who admitted that they actually had not heard Bryant, only took the quote from another source and ran with it.

Almost every article about the supposed gaffe failed to include the next sentence from Bryant’s mouth: “That’s not a bad thing.”

Read More

Ethics Commission vote clears way for Medicaid special session.

In a 5-3 vote, the state Ethics Commission cleared six Republican lawmakers who had potential conflicts of interest to vote on Medicaid funding, reauthorization and against expanding the program on Friday morning.

Gov. Phil Bryant and the legislative GOP leadership hope the lawmakers – who had abstained from voting because they work for Medicaid providers – will give them enough votes to end a legislative stalemate that threatens to shut Medicaid down July 1.

The six GOP House members who didn’t vote and requested Ethics opinions are: Donnie Bell, who does PR for a hospice provider; Bubba Carpenter, a paramedic; Becky Currie, a nurse for a home-health company; Mac Huddleston, a veterinarian who’s married to a doctor; Sam Mims, who does marketing for a regional health firm; and Margaret Rogers, whose father is a retired doctor.

An Ethics opinion doesn’t bind a lawmaker, but following it would provide them legal cover. Failing to follow an opinion’s advice could set them up for legal action and fines from the commission or courts.

The Ethics ruling appears to contradict one from 2012, which said lawmakers who work for private Medicaid providers should not vote on Medicaid funding and regulations.

But supporters of Friday’s ruling said it matches one from 2005, which allows lawmakers whose spouses or other family members are teachers to vote on education issues and funding.

And a state Supreme Court ruling from 2002 said two lawmakers who were pharmacists and received money from Medicaid could vote on the program.

Ethics Director Tom Hood and Ethics Commission Chairman Ben Stone noted before Friday’s vote that ruling against the lawmakers voting on Medicaid would require the commission to go back and do the same for lawmakers with family members who are educators.

Read More

NAACP, Steps Coalition moves could kill Biloxi baseball stadium plans.

The next week could determine if Minor League Baseball is coming to Biloxi or if it’s game over before the stadium is ever built.

Groups such as the Steps Coalition and Biloxi NAACP chapter, calling for a referendum on a $21 million city-issued bond to help build the stadium, have until June 18 to collect 1,500 signatures on a petition.

A referendum would delay the project by 60 to 90 days and could kill the deal, said Ron Peresich, city attorney.

He said the city has worked “earnestly” for the last five months to bring a team and stadium to Biloxi. Gov. Phil Bryant pledged $15 million of BP money to the project and Peresich said an owner’s group is ready to pay $14.5 million to buy a team, move it to Biloxi and start playing in April.

Read More

Gov. Bryant to drum up business in South America in September.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant will lead a trade delegation to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil from Sept. 9-13.

Mississippi Development Authority is sponsoring at least two other trade trips between July and October. Bryant is not scheduled to go on the other two trips.

The MDA says the trip to Brazil and a second trip to Chile on Sept. 5 – 7 will bring Mississippi companies that want to expand trade and create new business relationships with contact with South American markets.

“Over the last few years, we have seen a significant growth in exports from Mississippi and from the U.S. as a whole to Brazil,” Bryant said in statement. “The country is hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and these two events alone will require extensive infrastructure development, which is creating notable export opportunities for U.S. businesses.”

Read More

Governor and Lt. Governor to join in breaking ground for Grammy Museum.

The Grammy Museum Mississippi will showcase the state’s role in developing blues, country and genres that shaped American music.

Officials are breaking ground Tuesday for the museum. It will be at the south end of the Delta State University golf course, off of Mississippi Highway 8 in Cleveland.

The museum is scheduled to open in early summer 2015. It will have more than 20,000 square feet and will feature interactive exhibits.

Organizers say that over the past five years, $12.5 million has been raised for the $18 million project. That includes $3 million from the city of Cleveland and $1 million each from the state of Mississippi and Bolivar County.

Read More

Gov. Bryant proposes grants to community health centers to increase care to uninsured.

Gov. Phil Bryant’s alternative proposal to increase health care coverage in the state is to provide additional grant money to federally qualified community health centers to provide services to low-income residents and the uninsured.

Bryant’s staff said the governor remains opposed to Medicaid expansion but considers grants a viable option because they wouldn’t place any long-term obligation on the state..

“It’s not locking us into anything,” said Bryant spokesman Mick Bullock.

Bullock said the governor is exploring a number of ways to continue providing health care access to those who need it. Each federally qualified community health center is governed by a community-based board with patients representing a controlling majority.

Mississippi has 21 such centers with 166 delivery sites in the very high need areas of the state that in 2012 served 325,000 patients.

Read More

PEP Talk Podcast: Mississippi historically not as partisan as you may think.

BY: B. Keith Plunkett @Keithplunkett

Geoff Pallay is Director of Research at the Lucy Burns Institute, sponsors of Ballotpedia and Judgepedia. He joined me to discuss the new study “Who Runs the States”, an in-depth analysis of 22 years of data on partisanship in state government.

This Podcast is sponsored by:

PENDER: Medicaid strategy angers Dems.

Gov. Phil Bryant and Speaker Philip Gunn are hoping a handful of Republican House members will put aside ethical concerns, vote with the team and end the state Medicaid standoff.

But this has Democrats spitting mad, crying foul and posting conspiracy theories. It’s also likely to get the courts involved, and it’s dragging the state Ethics Commission, bless its heart, into the fray.

In other words, the Mississippi Medicaid situation is: situation normal, all fouled up, as the clock ticks. The program is set to “expire” July 1. If there’s a compromise in the offing, it’s being kept secret. The main game afoot right now is GOP strategy to get a few more votes, at least enough to fund Medicaid for the year, then let Bryant run it temporarily by executive fiat and fight over expansion later.

Medicaid was held hostage over the Obamacare fight in the regular legislative session. House Democrats, pushing for Medicaid expansion, blocked funding and reauthorization of the program, trying to force a vote on expansion. Republicans, although in the majority, were a few votes shy of preventing this because six members refrained from voting because of potential conflicts of interest. They work for health care providers that receive money from Medicaid.

The six GOP House members who didn’t vote are: Donnie Bell, who does PR for a hospice provider; Bubba Carpenter, a paramedic; Becky Currie, a nurse for a home-health company; Mac Huddleston, a veterinarian who’s married to a doctor; Sam Mims, who does marketing for a regional health firm; and Margaret Rogers, whose father is a retired doctor.

The state Ethics Commission has issued many opinions over many years about lawmakers with health care jobs voting on Medicaid. They’re all over the map, because the particulars of each lawmaker’s case are different. But in very general terms, the rulings have trended that those who work for public hospitals and providers can vote on Medicaid; those working for private companies cannot.

Currently, two requests for opinions on the issue are pending before the eight-member Ethics Commission. One is a blanket request that would ostensibly cover all the lawmakers, the other an individual’s request. The identity of those making such requests is by law confidential, but Gunn has said he made the blanket request.

Read More

PEP Talk Podcast: Dr. Randy Easterling discusses the pressure of Medicaid expansion on Mississippi’s doctors.

Dr. Randy Easterling, the past president of the Mississippi Medical Association, talks with Managing Editor Keith Plunkett about how the expansion of Medicaid in Mississippi would further pressure doctors and decrease access to health care to Mississippi’s most needy.

Related articles

• Snowden: Medicaid expansion not economic development, will weaken provider capacity. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
• Plunkett: DSH payments will never be cut. Dems should vote to reauthorize Medicaid now. | Mississippi PEP (keithplunkett.wordpress.com)
• Plunkett: Medicaid expansion is subsidizing sickness. | Mississippi PEP (keithplunkett.wordpress.com)
• Race-based study group attempts to sway states on Medicaid expansion with polling data. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
• A Provocation: Provide or Protect? | Mississippi PEP (keithplunkett.wordpress.com)
• Division of Medicaid preparing to notify beneficiaries of loss of coverage. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)