Mississippi House could vote on longer Medicaid for moms

JACKSON, Miss. — The day after Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves reversed course and said he wants the state to let women have a full year of Medicaid coverage after birth, another Republican leader pledged not to block a vote on the issue.

House Speaker Philip Gunn said Monday that he will let the House Medicaid Committee consider a bill that would extend postpartum Medicaid coverage from two months to a year. The committee meets Tuesday.

Gunn killed a similar bill last year, and he has said he would allow debate if the state Division of Medicaid were to endorse the proposal. Medicaid Director Drew Snyder, who is appointed by the governor, issued a letter Monday saying that allowing a year of coverage after birth “is a suitable approach for Mississippi.”

“I think we’re consistent in the position that we’ve had,” Gunn said. “Now, what has changed is the position in the Department of Medicaid.”

Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have extended postpartum Medicaid coverage to a full year.

Reeves, Gunn and many other Republican officials in Mississippi remain opposed to allowing Medicaid coverage for people working low-wage jobs that don’t provide health insurance — an expansion that’s optional under the health overhaul signed into law in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama.

Reeves is seeking reelection, and Democrats have hammered his unwillingness to allow a year of postpartum Medicaid coverage. Reeves said Sunday that more babies will be born because the U.S. Supreme Court upended abortion rights nationwide last year with a case from Mississippi. He said longer Medicaid coverage after birth is “part of our new prolife agenda.”

On Monday, a diverse group of religious leaders in a group called Working Together Mississippi spoke in favor of a full year of postpartum coverage.

Standing on the steps of a cathedral near the Governor’s Mansion, Bishop Joseph Kopacz of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson read aloud a statement that he and Bishop Louis Kihneman of the Biloxi Diocese are sending lawmakers. It praised past actions “to protect the lives of unborn children.”

“However, the commitment to life must not end at birth,” the bishops’ statement said. “We believe that access to affordable healthcare is a fundamental human right.”

Rabbi Debra Kassoff of the Hebrew Union Congregation in Greenville and organizer of Working Together Mississippi, said a full year of postpartum Medicaid coverage could lead to healthier mothers.

“As a leader in the Jewish community, I am mindful that I do not always stand in the same place as the Bishops Kopacz and Kihneman on all issues having to do with reproductive health,” Kassoff said. “But at this time, when women’s choices and self-determination (are) being proscribed, it is all the more important that this essential postpartum health care be extended.”

Medicaid pays for about 60% of births in Mississippi. The state is one of the poorest in the U.S., and it has high rates of infant mortality and maternal mortality. Black women are significantly more likely to have complications after pregnancy.

During the COVID-19 national public health emergency that began in 2020, states have been leaving people on Medicaid.

That emergency is set to end in May.

Religious leaders were asked Monday about the governor’s new stance on the issue.

“For all of the people of faith, we are accustomed to folks waiting ‘til the last moment,” said Bishop Ronnie Crudup Sr. of the Fellowship of International Churches and head pastor of New Horizon Church International. “We welcome the governor’s remarks and his commitment that he has come to faith on this issue.”