As the Mississippi Legislature heads into session in Jackson on Tuesday, members of Leflore County’s delegation say they expect Medicaid and funding for education to dominate debate this year.
Rep. Willie Perkins, D-Greenwood, said he’s already working on a bill to expand Medicaid in the state. He said an expansion would make health care “affordable to the working poor who do not have any insurance.”
Efforts to expand the program, led primarily by Democrats, failed last year in the face of opposition by Gov. Phil Bryant and the Republican majority in the Legislature.
Expanding Medicaid has been an option since the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, was signed into law in 2010. Mississippi is one of 24 states that have so far declined to expand the program to cover those that earn less than 138 percent of the federal poverty line.
Rep. Bobby Howell, R-Kilmichael, chairman of the Medicaid committee, said now is not the time to expand the program. Howell said Medicaid rolls are already growing under the ACA and, given the law’s rocky implementation, it’s too soon to talk about further changes.
“I think under the Affordable Care Act we expected at least 70,000 to 90,000 more Mississippians to be added to the regular Medicaid program,” Howell said. “That’s not including the expansion that everyone has been talking about.”
Howell said the new enrollees will include children, pregnant women and many, now required to obtain health insurance, who will discover they’re eligible.
“To expand to add an additional 300,000 people, a lot of us including myself don’t feel like this is the right time to do that,” Howell said.
Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, strongly disagreed. He said Mississippi, as one of the poorest states in the country, couldn’t afford to pass up the federal funds — which he estimated at $400 million — tied to expansion.
“We’ve got people in the state of Mississippi that can’t afford health care or insurance who would benefit from the Medicaid expansion,” Jordan said. “I hate to see money designated for Mississippi be used by states that don’t need it as bad as Mississippi.”
Perkins said the economic benefits of expansion for the state would be significant. He also pointed out that the ACA reduces some other forms of federal funding for hospitals, meaning without the expansion many hospitals will be hurting.
“Expanding the Medicaid program would bring it a lot of money, create some jobs and help hospitals,” Perkins said. “Hospitals are going to lose money that they would normally receive for providing medical care for an indigent person.”
Perkins and Jordan said they also would like to see the state’s teachers receive a pay raise. House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, recently came out in support of a raise for teachers. Mississippi teachers haven’t received a raise since 2007.
Though Bryant has come out in support of a merit-based pay raise for teachers, both Perkins and Jordan said any raises should be for all teachers. “An across-the-board is the fairest way to do it,” Jordan said.
Perkins said a merit pay scheme was floated by then Gov. Kirk Fordice when Perkins was first elected in 1993.
“I was against merit pay then, and I’m against it now,” Perkins said. “It’d be arbitrary, capricious selection of certain teachers in perhaps certain areas and giving them merit pay. I think it’d have an adverse impact on minority teachers.”
Howell said other state employees have also been missing out on pay raises for several years.
“I think we’d have to potentially look at all state employees and not just one segment if we have the money to afford a raise right now,” Howell said.
Perkins said he would also be pushing to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, a formula used by the state to determine funding for public schools. Since the formula was adopted in 1997, it’s been fully funded just twice, most recently in 2007.
Perkins said hitting the full levels of funding set out by MAEP would go a long way toward helping the state’s schools. “I believe that would solve a lot of problems that the school districts, particularly in the Delta, are going through,” Perkins said.
Howell said he’s heard a lot of people talking about fully funding MAEP but believes the real issue is with the formula itself.
“When they say we underfund education, that’s really using that old formula that’s been around a long time,” Howell said. “Education funding as such has grown every year.”
Perkins added that he thought Mississippi Valley State University could use additional state backing from this legislative session.
“There’s a need for more student housing, and there’s still some buildings that need upgrades and renovations,” Perkins said.
Several lawmakers also said they’ll be backing efforts by Viking Range Corp. to secure as much as $13 million in state aid.
The manufacturer of upscale kitchen appliances is looking to expand its refrigeration production in Greenwood.
“I want to work to help get them what they need to get what they need,” said Sen. Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona, who represents parts of Carroll and Leflore counties. “This is what they need to do to expand their product line in Greenwood and maybe bring some jobs back that have gone by the wayside.”
Jordan said Viking also has his support, though he said he would seek assurances that there were no more looming layoffs. Since being acquired by The Middleby Corporation at the end of 2012, Viking has laid off approximately 25 percent of its work force in two rounds of cuts.
Chassaniol said, in addition to lobbying other legislators for Viking, she’ll be focused primarily on ways to boost tourism and the film industry in the region. She serves on the Senate’s tourism committee along with Jordan.
“The movies are a big opportunity for us,” Chassaniol said.
She said developing tourism in the region would provide a boost to the entire economy.
“We want folks to come enjoy our good food, music,” Chassaniol said. “I’ve been trying to work with all the Delta delegation to see how we might be able to develop our culture and heritage.”
Howell said state parks should be part of any tourism development plan.
“They have been just really underfunded for a number of years,” he said. “If we’re going to promote them through tourism development, we need to have them presentable and in good shape.”
Perkins said he’d also be keeping an eye out for other local issues as they come up, though he wasn’t necessarily promising support. Among the issues that have already caught his attention, he said, is a piece of legislation that needs to be renewed in order to keep the tourism tax in Greenwood from expiring. Perkins said he’d be supporting that legislation only if he saw documentation that Greenwood Convention and Visitors Bureau was following through requirements he added to the bill last year.
“I don’t give blanket support unless I know there’s been compliance,” Perkins said, referring to clauses he added to the bill requiring the CVB to donate at least $2,000 per year to Thompson-Clemons American Legion Post 200 and $5,000 to R&M Productions “for the promotion of tourism.”
