Wide swath of Mississippi could remain uninsured, By Julie Appleby and Jay Hancock, June 29, 2013, Washington Post: “Tens of thousands of uninsured residents in the poorest and most rural parts of Mississippi may be unable to get subsidies to buy health coverage when a new online marketplace opens this fall because private insurers are avoiding a wide swath of the state. No insurer is offering plans through the federal health law’s marketplace in 36 of the state’s 82 counties, including some of the poorest parts of the Delta region, said Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney. As a result, 54,000 people who may qualify for subsidized coverage would be unable to get it, estimates the Center for Mississippi Health Policy, a nonpartisan research group…”
Tag: Mississippi
States and Medicaid Expansion – Mississippi
Mississippi, one of the poorest and sickest states, says no thanks to extra Medicaid dollars, Associated Press, October 16, 2012, Washington Post: “Mississippi has long been one of the sickest and poorest states in America, with some of the highest rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease and more than 1 in 7 residents without insurance. And so you might think Mississippi would jump at the prospect of billions of federal dollars to expand Medicaid. You’d be wrong. Leaders of the deeply conservative state say that even if Mississippi receives boatloads of cash under President Barack Obama’s health care law, it can’t afford the corresponding share of state money it will have to put up to add hundreds of thousands of people to the government health insurance program for the poor…”
Food Insecurity – Mississippi
Program aims to reduce hunger in Mississippi, By Emily Wagster Pettus, June 22, 2012, Businessweek: “Mississippi has the highest obesity rate in the nation, yet it also has the highest percentage of households unable to afford enough food for a healthy lifestyle. It seems like a contradiction, but state Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith says the two problems are intertwined with poverty. “You think hunger-obesity — where’s the connection here? It’s because much of these people do not have access to healthy foods,” Hyde-Smith said Thursday during the announcement of a hunger-fighting effort. The nonprofit National Urban League and meat processor Tyson Foods Inc. are starting a yearlong program to alleviate hunger for about 19,000 people in three Mississippi counties — Hinds County, which is home to the capital city of Jackson, and Warren and Adams counties, which border the Mississippi River. . .”