The Mississippi Legislature’s $104 million shot in the arm to the state’s hospital system prior to closing the 2023 legislative session is quite revealing.
On one hand, it shows that the supermajority Republican body recognizes that there is a serious problem with the state’s health care system.
On the other hand, it confirms the fact that leadership has no real plan to solve this crisis at the state level.
Since the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was passed in 2010, Republican voters have been waiting anxiously for conservative politicians at every level of government to “repeal and replace” the Democratic-sponsored law.
Former President Donald Trump had the White House, both houses of Congress and the United States Supreme Court when he was swept into office in 2016.
But no one has fully delivered on the repeal and replace promise.
In fact, at least one conservative on the Supreme Court at one time helped to uphold the health care mandate that provided the teeth for Obamacare.
At the state level, politicians in red states have resisted for years the expansion of Medicaid, another key provision in ACA, which experts claim would infuse about a billion dollars into Mississippi’s health care system every year if passed.
Mississippi is one of just a few states that have not passed some form of Medicaid expansion.
Time is up, though.
Mississippi leaders must find a way to resuscitate its dying hospital system, particularly those in rural areas like the Delta.
And that plan must include Medicaid expansion.
However we may feel about the politics of Obamacare, the law is a reality that survived the most conservative presidency since the 1980s.
It’s not going away.
But what is going away is federal reimbursement for health care.
The law is designed to put the squeeze on states who may delay expansion while waiting for a repeal and a replacement for Obamacare.
We’d love to see a conservative, state-level approach to health care that ups quality of care, lowers costs for patients and raises revenues for hospitals, but we’ve heard only silence for the last decade-plus from state leaders.
The state has wasted too many years waiting for someone else to come up with a better plan.
Lawmakers had to know that $104 million isn’t going to move the needle much when it comes to keeping the doors open to hospitals in the state’s most desperate regions, but at least they recognized the need.
It’s time for everyone to come to the table and figure this out.
Mississippi needs a comprehensive health care plan, and unless lawmakers figure out something that Republicans in Washington and legislatures from 40 of the country’s 50 states couldn’t figure out between 2010 and 2023, that framework is going to have to include Medicaid expansion.
