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A brand new Mississippi legislation will enable earlier Medicaid protection for pregnant ladies in an effort to enhance well being outcomes for moms and infants in a poor state with the nation’s worst price of toddler mortality.
The “presumptive eligibility” laws signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves will grow to be legislation July 1. It says Medicaid pays for a pregnant girl’s outpatient medical take care of as much as 60 days whereas her utility for the government-funded insurance coverage program is being thought-about.
Processing Medicaid functions can take weeks, and physicians say early prenatal care is important.
REPUBLICAN-LED MISSISSIPPI HOUSE ADVANCES MEDICAID EXPANSION PROPOSAL, MOVES ON TO SENATE
The advocacy group Mississippi Black Girls’s Roundtable praised the brand new legislation, which handed the Republican-controlled Legislature with bipartisan help.
“This represents a major step ahead within the effort to create higher well being for girls and their households,” the group mentioned in a press release.
Black infants in Mississippi had been practically twice as doubtless as white ones to die over the previous decade, in response to a report unveiled Jan. 18 by the state Division of Well being.
Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves delivers his State of the State deal with to the Mississippi State Legislature on Feb. 26, 2024, on the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss. Reeves signed a brand new legislation on March 12, 2024, that may enable ladies to obtain Medicaid protection earlier in being pregnant. (AP Photograph/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
Presumptive Medicaid eligibility throughout being pregnant could be primarily based on questions on earnings, requested by well being care suppliers similar to county well being division employees. If a lady’s Medicaid utility is finally rejected as a result of her earnings is simply too excessive, Medicaid would nonetheless pay for providers supplied throughout the time of presumptive eligibility.
Home Medicaid Committee Chairwoman Missy McGee, a Republican from Hattiesburg, mentioned the full price to the Medicaid program shall be slightly below $600,000 a 12 months.
About 41% of births within the U.S. and 57% in Mississippi had been financed by Medicaid in 2022, in response to the well being coverage analysis group KFF. Solely Louisiana had a bigger share of births lined by Medicaid that 12 months, at 61%.
In Mississippi, Medicaid protection for pregnant ladies 19 and older is predicated on earnings. A lady in that age class who has no dependents can obtain as much as about $29,000 and qualify for Medicaid throughout being pregnant. One with three dependents can get as a lot as $59,700 and qualify.
Mississippi Medicaid protection is on the market to all earnings ranges for individuals who are pregnant and youthful than 19.
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In 2023, Mississippi prolonged postpartum Medicaid protection from two months to a full 12 months, with Reeves saying the change was a part of a “new pro-life agenda” to assist moms in a state the place abortion is tightly restricted.
Mississippi is amongst 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid eligibility to incorporate folks incomes as much as 138% of the federal poverty degree, or $20,120 yearly for a single particular person. Enlargement is allowed underneath the federal well being overhaul that then-President Barack Obama signed into legislation in 2010.
The Mississippi Home just lately voted for Medicaid enlargement. The state Senate has not voted on an enlargement proposal this 12 months, and Reeves has mentioned for years that he opposes including folks to authorities packages.
Mississippi permits automated Medicaid protection for being pregnant whereas utility processed
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