Gov. Haley Barbour said Monday that he wants legislators to solve Medicaid’s budget problems before the program runs out of money at the end of this week.
“I cannot think of any worse public policy or any bigger dereliction of duties by elected officials than to let this program shut down,” Barbour said during a news conference. “I cannot imagine what the people of Mississippi would think if that happened.”
Republican Barbour said he still opposes raising cigarette taxes to help fund the health care program for the needy and elderly. He says he thinks there’s only one place legislators can find enough money – the state health care trust fund.
He wants them to take $200 million out of the fund’s $500 million balance. The fund was created with Mississippi’s massive lawsuit settlement against tobacco companies.
House and Senate negotiators continued meeting about Medicaid on Monday.
The program’s executive director, Dr. Warren Jones, said there are no requirements for Medicaid to give notice to patients or providers if services stop after Friday. Medicaid has a $268 million shortfall for the budget year that ends June 30.
Barbour, a former tobacco lobbyist in Washington, said a proposed cigarette tax that has passed the House would bring in only about $20 million before June 30. He said he opposes any other kind of tax increase.
One of the House negotiators, Rep. George Flaggs, said during talks at the Capitol Monday that it’s “unconscionable” for Barbour and senators to oppose raising taxes on companies that make harmful products when doing so would help fund Medicaid.
Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, said he voted for the proposed cigarette tax increase because “I couldn’t see myself standing up with a killer.”
That brought an angry response from Sen. Terry Burton, R-Newton, who said “not one, single tobacco company” had contacted him to fight a tax increase.
“Don’t say I’m standing up with killers,” Burton said.
A health advocate said if Medicaid shuts down, she’ll blame Barbour because she believes he’s keeping the Senate from voting on a cigarette tax increase.
“The biggest Band-Aid initiative of all is to just look at taking money out of the health care trust fund,” said Oleta Garrett Fitzgerald, regional director of the Children’s Defense Fund.
Waurene Roberson of Oxford said she wants state officials to solve Medicaid’s problems quickly. She said she received a letter last Friday from the nursing home where her mother lives, saying Roberson would have to start paying $145 a day if Medicaid runs out of money.
“Which is about what my salary is, or more than my salary,” said Roberson, 58, a graphic designer. “So I would have to quit my job and go on welfare, and I don’t know how we would pay for medicine then.
“There are people there (in the nursing home) who have no family,” Roberson said. “What’s going to happen to them?”
