Mississippi’s Willful Neglect

It and some other red states can’t be trusted to take care of the poor.

By Jamelle Bouie

Like most Republicans, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is an Obamacare refusenik. A staunch opponent of the law, he rejected the Medicaid expansion, refused to build an exchange, and won’t encourage Mississippians to enroll in the federal backstop.

All of this is why, according to a recent report, the number of uninsured in the state has grown since last year, when Obamacare went into effect. As of this month, Mississippi has an uninsured rate of more than 21 percent, a 3.34 percentage-point increase over the previous year. By contrast, West Virginia—a similarly poor state that took the opposite approach—has seen its uninsured rate decline from more than 17 percent to an estimate of less than 7 percent, a slightly more than 10-point drop.