JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A county-owned Mississippi hospital system that wants to put itself up for sale says one of its main financial challenges is the decision by the state’s elected officials not to extend Medicaid to provide insurance coverage for the working poor.
“Mississippi is one of 12 states that did not adopt a Medicaid expansion, which means the amount of income that would have gone to health systems in our state is slated to decrease, significantly impacting hospitals like Singing River that provide significant care for underinsured and uninsured populations,” Singing River Health System says in a website that promotes its reasons for seeking new ownership.
Singing River Health System is owned by coastal Jackson County. The system operates hospitals in Pascagoula, Gulfport and Ocean Springs. It also has about three dozen clinics and more than 3,500 employees. Trustees of the system announced June 1 that they had voted to put it up for sale or to seek a merger with another health system.
For years, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and leaders of the Republican-controlled Mississippi Legislature have killed proposals to expand Medicaid, a government health insurance program funded by the federal and state governments. Although the federal government would pay most of the tab for expansion and that would put billions of dollars into the state, Reeves and others have said repeatedly that they don’t want to enroll more people in the public program.
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