Mississippi leaders are quiet on efforts to fix health care in state

Mississippians have benefitted more from the enhanced subsidies provided for the federal Affordable Care Act marketplace insurance policies than the people of almost any other state.

But Mississippi Republican politicians – on both the state and federal level – have been silent as church mice in offering solutions for when the enhanced federal subsidies expire at the end of 2025. The expiration will cause insurance premiums to skyrocket for 200,000 to 300,000 Mississippians.

The marketplace, created in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act, allows people to purchase health care coverage often with federal financial assistance. The original ACA provided subsidies or tax credits for people falling within certain income categories.

During President Joe Biden’s administration, the financial assistance was enhanced, providing additional aid to purchase health insurance for low-income people and for the first time in some instances offering assistance for people who would be considered more affluent but working in jobs that do not provide health insurance. Under the enhanced subsidies, the premiums are capped at 8.5% of a person’s earnings.

It is those enhanced subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.

Democrats in Congress have been trying to extend the enhanced subsidies, but President Donald Trump and the congressional Republican leadership have resisted. Mississippi Republican leadership, including U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith and the state’s congressional delegation have sided with Trump and the congressional leadership.

According to KFF, as reported by Mississippi Today, a 40-year-old Jacksonian earning $30,000 per year would see their monthly insurance cost increase from the current $42 to $155 for a policy purchased on the exchange when the enhanced federal financial assistance expires at the end of 2025.

Mississippi politicians, though quiet on the issue of the expiring subsidies, seem to have a reason to be concerned.

After all, according to KFF, a national nonprofit organization that studies health care issues, 99% of Mississippians with an ACA exchange health insurance policy receive federal financial premium assistance. And from 2020 through 2025, according to KFF, the number of Mississippians with marketplace health insurance policies has risen an astounding 242%. Only Texas saw a bigger jump of 256%.

Both Mississippi and Texas are home of financially struggling hospitals and poor health care outcomes. 

The enhanced financial assistance was one of the few positive occurrences for health care providers and low-income people in Mississippi where politicians have historically tried to address large gashes in the health care delivery system with bandages.

But when some Mississippi politicians, including Republican House Speaker Jason White, were trying to address the health care issue by joining 40 other states in expanding Medicaid to help hospitals financially while providing reliable health care coverage for poor working Mississippians, those opposed to expansion cited the enhanced subsidies.

They claimed that Medicaid expansion was not needed for many Mississippians because they could garner private health insurance for little or no cost thanks to the enhanced subsidies.

But now the subsidies are ending unless Congress reverses course. Rural hospitals and working Mississippians, who still do not have Medicaid expansion to help with their health care needs, will be faced with paying much more for private insurance.

When it comes to health care, Mississippi seems to take one small step forward and giant leaps backward.

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