Hospitals once offered to pay for Mississippi Medicaid expansion. Now in dire straits, they couldn’t cover it

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Regardless of stacks of research over years exhibiting in any other case, most of Mississippi’s Republican management has been steadfast in its foremost argument that “the state can’t afford” Medicaid enlargement to cowl the working poor within the poorest, sickest state within the nation.

In late 2018, struggling Mississippi hospitals hoping to cowl tons of of thousands and thousands a yr in uncompensated take care of the indigent determined to name the bluff: They supplied “Mississippi Cares,” a plan for hospitals and the working poor themselves to cowl the state’s price to drag down billions in federal {dollars}.

However legislative leaders, together with then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and Home Speaker Philip Gunn, who stay against Medicaid enlargement, rejected the plan. It by no means even went to a vote.

Now, regularly hammered by uncompensated care prices for the uninsured, the COVID-19 pandemic and different monetary headwinds, Mississippi hospitals couldn’t afford to cowl the state’s share on Medicaid enlargement, stated Mississippi Hospital Affiliation President/CEO Tim Moore. Many are on the point of monetary smash — one thing they’d hoped Medicaid enlargement might rectify.

READ MORE: ‘What’s your plan, watch Rome burn?’: Politicians proceed to reject answer to rising hospital disaster

“I don’t understand how (hospitals) would fund the match now due to the situation they’ve gotten in with all these losses. It could be left as much as the state now,” Moore stated. “When you’ve gotten main hospital methods on this state which have misplaced 1 / 4 billion {dollars} final yr, hospitals which have by no means had losses having them now and others budgeting for main losses for subsequent yr – the variety of hospitals near the brink is probably the most it’s ever been.”

State Well being Officer Dr. Daniel Edney not too long ago gave an analogous warning to the state Board of Well being. He stated six hospitals within the Delta are “in vital, dire circumstances,” and not less than 4 others throughout the state are struggling.

“There are 10 or 12 that in a yr or two from now might not be right here,” Edney stated. “… To lose six hospitals within the Delta could be catastrophic … Nobody’s coming to the rescue.”

Amongst different issues, Moore stated, hospitals are having to pay again federal loans they took through the pandemic as labor prices, pharmaceutical and different provide prices skyrocket and income stays flat.

“It’s an ideal storm for a monetary catastrophe for hospitals,” Moore stated, one which has been ameliorated by federal well being {dollars} in states which have expanded Medicaid per the Reasonably priced Care Act.

READ MORE: Mississippi leaving greater than $1 billion per yr on desk by rejecting Medicaid enlargement

To attempt to overcome political opposition, MHA had proposed making a public-private partnership, increasing Medicaid eligibility to adults incomes as much as 138% of the poverty stage however imposing a $20 a month premium on enrollees and a $100 copay for non-emergency use of hospital emergency rooms. Hospitals would cowl remaining state prices.

A examine projected the plan would create a median further 36,000 jobs a yr in Mississippi for the primary 11 years and supply a rise in state tax income, a lower in personal insurance coverage premiums and a discount in uncompensated care prices of $252 million a yr. The plan additionally included a requirement that unemployed beneficiaries enroll in job coaching or teaching programs.

Q&A: What’s Medicaid enlargement, actually?