Jackson Free Press

The most momentous action so far during the special session wasn't technically on the agenda: Gov. Haley Barbour signed HB 1434 Wednesday, May 26, a "landmark" bill to cut $106 million from the state budget and terminate 65,000 low-income and disabled Mississippians from the Medicaid rolls as of July 1. Of those, 60,000 will be shifted to the federal Medicare program by 2006 (which can see more cuts later), and the medical fates of the other 5,000 are uncertain. They will not be eligible right away for Medicare, nor are they certain to receive prescription drug coverage under Barbour's plan.

"By shifting health care coverage to Medicare, Mississippians who were on the Medicaid rolls will still have health insurance, but the federal government will pay for it," the supposedly anti-federalism Republican said in a press conference at the Capitol. In so doing, he ignored a unanimous resolution the House passed the day before calling for him to extend the special session to deal with the impending Medicaid crisis as July 1 approaches.

Opponents of Barbour's plan protested later that day in the Rotunda, led by House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, and Rep. Steve Holland, D-Planterville, both of whom said they should not have signed the original bill under pressure from the governor on the last day of the session. McCoy was angry: "Can we not afford to take care of 65,000 people who cannot afford to take care of themselves?" he asked. "What kind of society are we?"

In the House, Holland read from a fax he'd received May 25 from Leighton Ku of the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. "Mississippi's changes are the deepest cuts that have ever been imposed to low income seniors and people with disabilities in the history of the Medicaid program, to my knowledge."

Jane Smith* attended the rally in the rotunda against Barbour's Medicaid plan, which they say is balancing the budget on the backs of Mississippi's poor and disabled. Smith, who lives in an apartment across from Baptist Hospital with her daughter, draws a $944 Social Security check. Smith, 75 pulled out a canvas toiletry kit filled with 11 prescription drugs, including nitroglycerine, that she has had to take since she had triple bypass heart surgery.

As one of those Mississippians who is being dropped under Barbour's plan, she doesn't know what will happen to her. "I am a nervous wreck," she said. "I am also full of anger, and I'm having to work with it. I'm angry that this state will elect a governor who will do things like this."