JACKSON - The pressure is on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to relinquish one of his legislative victories, but it's difficult to predict whether he'll fold.
At Barbour's request, legislators voted in the spring to overhaul the Division of Medicaid and cut 65,000 people from the program. Barbour said the measure was needed to curtail spending at the mammoth agency that serves 720,000 underprivileged Mississippians.
Barbour has repeatedly said no one who's eligible for care will be left without it.
He said about 47,000 of the people losing Medicaid will be covered by the federal Medicare program. And the state is applying for federal waivers to continue providing Medicaid coverage for about 18,000 people who need anti-rejection drugs after organ transplants or chemotherapy, dialysis or anti-psychotic drugs.
But social activists and health care workers complain that there's no guarantee the waivers will be approved, and that Medicare's prescription plan won't be fully implemented until January 2006.
Soon after the session ended, several lawmakers cried for a Medicaid "do-over." They humbly said they'd made a mistake by eliminating thousands from the program that operates on federal and state dollars. The elected officials began fielding telephone calls from angry constituents worried about whether to use their fixed incomes to pay rent or buy prescriptions.
The options to undo the changes were limited. Lawmakers asked Barbour to put Medicaid on the agenda of two special sessions he called this summer. Both times he declined.
Last week, Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, said she was filing a bill for the session that starts in January to restore eligibility to the 65,000. Other legislators are expected to follow suit, but Scott was one of the handful who fiercely fought against the bill in the waning days of the 2004 session.
The Democratic Party has its message on the airwaves. The party has bought radio advertisements criticizing Sens. Tommy Robertson of Moss Point, Travis Little of Corinth and Alan Nunnelee of Tupelo and Rep. Greg Snowden of Meridian for supporting the changes. The ads implore people to call the lawmakers and demand that the Sept. 15 deadline for Medicaid cuts be extended.
Barbour would get little political mileage out of softening his hard line on Medicaid. Sure, it would help his public image among critics, but he could alienate his core voters who want him to control state spending.
Mixed messages on Medicaid emerged from Barbour's camp last week.
The governor was quoted as saying he doubted Scott's bill would pass the 2005 Legislature. But his deputy chief of staff, John Arledge, said the governor would add Medicaid to a special session call if the recipients dropped from the program don't get comparable coverage from the federal government or other health plans by next month's deadline.
Arledge added that Barbour was confident the goal would be reached, especially since Medicaid is devoting staff to a statewide effort to enroll the recipients in other plans.
Barbour is likely wrong about legislative support for Scott's bill. The plan could easily pass the House and Senate. Some senators who signed off on every point of Barbour's legislative agenda last session are now willing to undo the Medicaid changes.
The question is whether Barbour would veto the bill.
