By Geoff Pender
Apr 9, 2021 2:49 PM
The Mississippi Hospital Association’s board of governors on Friday voted to join in the drive to put Medicaid expansion Initiative 76 before voters in 2022.
“We will start by May 1 collecting signatures,” said MHA president Tim Ford.
Mississippi is one of 12 states that has refused to expand Medicaid via the Affordable Care Act, with the state’s GOP political leadership rejecting at least $1 billion a year in federal funds that would provide health coverage for hundreds of thousands of working poor people in the poorest state in the country. Health advocates and hospitals have lobbied lawmakers and governors for years to no avail and now will push to let voters decide.
Legislature faces deja vu after ballot initiative for Medicaid expansion is filed
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BILL CRAWFORD: GOP leadership seems witless on Medicaid math
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By Geoff Pender
Apr 5, 2021 7:17 PM
After years of partisan fear and loathing and failed attempts in the Legislature, health care and racial justice advocates want Mississippi voters to force the issue and expand Medicaid at the ballot box.
A nonprofit incorporated by the president of the Mississippi Hospital Association and others has filed preliminary paperwork to start ballot Initiative 76, which would put Medicaid expansion in the state constitution, draw down billions of dollars in federal funds and provide health care to potentially hundreds of thousands of working, low-income, uninsured Mississippians.
Mississippi is one of just 12 states that has refused to expand Medicaid, leaving hundreds of thousands of citizens without the ability to afford health care coverage and rejecting at least $1 billion per year in federal funds.
JACKSON ⢠After Mississippi s Republican-controlled Legislature again refused to seriously consider Medicaid expansion this year, a new nonprofit says it s time for voters to decide.
The group of state health leaders filed paperwork in February for a Medicaid expansion ballot initiative. If Initiative 76 is approved, it would tap into billions of dollars worth of federal health care insurance money over the next several years.
Those funds would be used to cover possibly hundreds of thousands of working, low-income Mississippians who cannot afford health care. Mississippi Today first reported Monday on the existence of the initiative effort.
Mississippi is one of 12 states that have refused to accept Medicaid expansion money dating back to 2014. Advocates estimate the state has missed out on roughly $1 billion per year since.