A lawmaker playing hardball may cost poor pregnant women a policy that would help them receive timely prenatal care – after the program’s implementation was already delayed a year because of administrative hiccups.
Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, told Mississippi Today he will not be taking a House bill to fix the issues in the program. He called it “his prerogative as chairman” – despite authoring his own bill last year on the policy and purportedly being a strong proponent.
House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, the author of last year’s bill on presumptive eligibility for pregnant women that passed into law, re-worked the bill this year to match federal guidelines so the program can take effect. It passed the House unanimously Jan. 24 and was transferred to the Senate.
But now, it may die in the Senate due to political bartering.
Blackwell added the policy to the Medicaid tech bill, legislation that comes up nearly every year to make technical amendments and updates to laws governing the Division of Medicaid. But Blackwell’s bill contains dozens of items – including special interest items such as mandating that the agency cover a new, $16,000 postpartum depression drug and a sleep apnea device .
Sage Therapeutics, the Massachusetts-based company that makes the postpartum depression drug, has hired the local lobbying firm the Clearwater Group this year.
“I don’t believe it’s the best idea (that) something so critical (as pregnancy presumptive eligibility) should be attached to a $7 million laundry list of unrelated lobbyist requests, particularly as our federal government has stated its intent to trim such unnecessary spending,” McGee told Mississippi Today. “The House will continue fighting for the people who don’t have a hired lobbying effort.”
Medical experts say early prenatal care is essential to mitigating bad health outcomes like preterm birth, for which Mississippi leads the nation.
Should Blackwell’s 186-page technical amendment bill pass, it would cost the Division of Medicaid $6.8 million. In contrast, it was estimated last year that presumptive eligibility would cost just under $600,000. Lawmakers appropriated that amount to the agency last year.
Although Blackwell’s bill passed the full Senate on Feb. 12, another lawmaker also had questions about the costs associated with the bill.
“It looks to me like we’re covering a lot more than we have in the past, and I think – don’t we have like a $25 million Medicaid deficit?” Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, asked on the floor.
Blackwell confirmed that the agency is facing a deficit next year.
Blackwell’s bill is now in the hands of the House Medicaid committee, which McGee chairs.
McGee’s bill – which strictly fixes the issues with pregnancy presumptive eligibility and would allow the Division of Medicaid to continue training providers and allow pregnant women to take advantage of the program – will die if not passed out of Blackwell’s committee by the deadline Tuesday, March 4.
The policy, called Presumptive Eligibility for Pregnant Women, would allow low-income women who became newly-eligible for Medicaid once pregnant to receive immediate prenatal care as soon as they find out they’re pregnant – even if their Medicaid application is still pending. The policy is especially effective in non-expanded states, where the majority of low-income women aren’t eligible for Medicaid until they become pregnant – meaning a lengthy application process can cut well into their pregnancy.
Mississippi is currently one of only three states with neither expansion or presumptive eligibility for pregnant women.
Family Health Center in Laurel was one of the first clinics to sign up for the program when it was rolled out by the Division of Medicaid last year. Dr. Rashad Ali, an OB and the CEO of the clinic who has made it his mission to serve uninsured and underinsured women, was disappointed to hear that the policy needed to go through the Legislature once again to be amended.
Now, he worries what will happen if the policy never goes into effect.
“I think they’re missing out on great opportunities to enhance the wellbeing of pregnant moms in the state of Mississippi,” said Ali. “… We are one of the leading states in terms of maternal mortality. This is one of the things that can help bring us out of the top.”
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