Mississippi lawmakers expected to vote on Medicaid expansion plan with work requirement

Mississippi lawmakers are expected to ballot this week connected a connection that would grow Medicaid sum to tens of thousands much people, but it includes a enactment request that mightiness not triumph national approval

JACKSON, Miss. -- Mississippi lawmakers are expected to ballot this week connected a connection that would grow Medicaid sum to tens of thousands much people, but it includes a enactment request that mightiness not triumph national approval.

The authorities House and Senate passed abstracted enlargement plans earlier this year. With the four-month legislative league pushing into its last days, negotiators from the 2 chambers submitted a compromise moments earlier a Monday nighttime deadline. They declined to reply questions aft emerging from a closed-door meeting, but the connection was filed successful legislative clerks’ offices.

The program would necessitate the caller Medicaid recipients to beryllium employed astatine slightest 100 hours a period successful a occupation that does not supply backstage health insurance. Or, they could acceptable into different categories, specified arsenic being a fulltime pupil oregon the genitor of a kid younger than 6.

If the national authorities rejects Mississippi's enactment requirement, the authorities Division of Medicaid would beryllium required to proceed seeking support each twelvemonth — an acknowledgement that a antithetic national medication mightiness supply a antithetic decision.

Georgia is the lone authorities with a Medicaid enactment requirement, and it is suing the national authorities to effort to support the mandate successful place. The enactment request was approved by then-President Donald Trump’s administration, but the Biden medication announced successful December 2021 that it was revoking the approval. That prompted Georgia officials to sue.

Mississippi is 1 of the poorest states successful the U.S., and advocates accidental covering tens of thousands much radical with Medicaid could assistance them negociate chronic wellness conditions specified arsenic asthma and diabetes.

The national wellness overhaul signed by then-President Barack Obama successful 2010 allowed states to grow Medicaid, mostly to radical who enactment low-wage jobs without insurance. Mississippi is among the 10 states that person resisted expansion.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has said for years that helium does not privation to enactment much Mississippi residents connected authorities programs. But dynamics successful the Republican-controlled Legislature changed this twelvemonth with the enactment of a caller House speaker, Jason White, who said enlargement could assistance immoderate of Mississippi's financially struggling hospitals.

The House voted by a wide bipartisan borderline successful precocious February to grow Medicaid sum to astir 200,000 radical who gain up to 138% of the national poorness level, oregon $20,120 annually for 1 person. Mississippi has astir 3 cardinal residents, and its Medicaid programme covered 374,823 radical successful March.

In precocious March, the Senate passed its ain pared-down mentation that would widen eligibility to radical earning up to 100% of the national poorness level, conscionable implicit $15,000 for 1 person. Senate Medicaid Committee Chairman Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southaven, said astir 80,000 radical would go eligible for sum but helium thought astir fractional that fig would enroll.