After victories, Medicaid expansion revisited in Mississippi

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — After voters expanded Medicaid in conservative states like Missouri and Oklahoma, health care advocates are renewing a push for expansion in Mississippi and other Southern states where Republican leaders have long been opposed.

They say the changing tide has followed rising income inequality, joblessness and pressure from hospitals in economic turmoil — issues exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

“There have been, in the last two years, votes on Medicaid expansion in some of the most conservative, Republican-leaning states in the country, and Medicaid expansion has never lost,” said Eliot Fishman, senior director of Health Policy at Families USA, a health care advocacy organization.

Fishman spoke Thursday during an online forum about Medicaid expansion hosted by the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program and the Mississippi Center for Justice.

Medicaid expansion is an option under the health care overhaul that then-President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010. Many Democratic-controlled states agreed to expansion, mainly for people whose jobs don't provide health insurance.

However, since Republican Donald Trump became president in January 2017, voters in Idaho, Nebraska, Utah, Oklahoma, Maine and most recently Missouri have approved Medicaid expansion by ballot measures. In Virginia, legislators passed Medicaid expansion after Democrats gained power.

“This is clearly an issue which you can no longer shut down voter interest by just saying the word ‘Obamacare,’ ” Fishman said. “That power has waned.”

There are now 12 states — including Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Florida — that have not expanded Medicaid. A newly formed collaborative, “Southerners for Medicaid...