STARKVILLE, Miss. —
The Politico Web site in recent days trumpeted what they call a Mississippi Republican political “feud” over the question of health care exchanges. The truth is slightly less dramatic — and the notion that Mississippi’s GOP is a robotic, lockstep organization simply ignores reality.
According to the site: “In red-state capitols in places like Idaho, Tennessee and Mississippi, Republicans are clashing over whether to participate in a Democratic president’s signature legislative achievement.
“At issue are the state-based health care exchanges, set to start in 2014, which will create new marketplaces for people who can’t get insurance elsewhere. If states don’t declare their plans to set one up by Dec. 14, the Department of Health and Human Services will begin doing it for them. So Republicans face a choice: Create their own and appear to endorse a federal government health care takeover, or allow Washington to take control.
“Nowhere is the fight playing out more publicly among Republicans than in Mississippi.”
Facing a Nov. 16 deadline for states to tell the federal government whether they will create a health insurance exchange, Chaney chose what he considered the lesser of policy evils.
The same Supreme Court ruling that initially gave Republican leaders some wiggle room on Medicaid expansion leaves far less such on the health exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. Under the ruling, states are left with three choices: First, the states can operate their own insurance marketplace using federal funds to acquire and implement the technology to allow insurance customers to compare and buy their own insurance.
Second, the states can leave that responsibility and the control of the process to the federal government. Third, states can create a federal-state “partnership” to set up a health exchange.
Despite criticism of the policy decision from Gov. Phil Bryant and other fellow Republicans, Chaney chose to lay the groundwork for Mississippi to operate its own health insurance exchange under state control. Bryant has consistently held opposition to the exchanges, as he has the overall ACA.
Chaney, while also a longtime opponent of the ACA, thought the state-operated health exchanges gave Mississippi the most flexibility and control.
Do Bryant and Chaney disagree over the policy? Sure, but does that disagreement reach the level of a political “feud?” Makes for a nice headline, but the fact is that back in the days when the Democratic Party dominated Mississippi politics, there was no great outcry when Democrats regularly disagreed among themselves over public policy.
It was accepted, expected and given little notice with the possible exception of the issue of segregation. Anyone remember “Freedom Democrats” and “Regular Democrats?”
Now, magically, are we to accept the suggestion that Republicans in Mississippi are always of like mind on questions of complex public policy? The fact is that Mississippi Republicans have long had significant factions and will likely continue to do so.
Bryant aligned himself with fellow Republican governors who fear future changes in the ACA — and the policy stance has not wavered. Chaney is looking at his own immediate regulatory and service responsibilities. Those strategies are difficult to reconcile to a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all policy and hence, they disagree.
As it was with state Democrats, the existence of factions and divergent thought and even a few healthy disagreements among Mississippi Republicans is the sign of a maturing, growing political party — not a “feud.”
(Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at 601-507-8004 or sidsalter@sidsalter.com)
Opinion
Republican Party not robotic
- Opinion
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.” -
Health care market needs oversight
By Gene Lyons/Syndicated columnist
Sometimes the best journalism explains what’s right under our noses. In Steven Brill’s exhaustive Time magazine cover article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” it’s the staggeringly expensive, grotesquely inefficient and inhumane way Americans pay for medical care.
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VA’s appalling failures not recent
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While recent national press attention to ongoing problems at Mississippi’s G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center in Jackson is welcome and needed, the failures of the overall VA service apparatus in Mississippi are not recent problems.
In short, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery — Mississippi’s “Mr. Veteran” and author of the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name — must be spinning in his grave. There have been significant failures and poor service to veterans documented by state and local media since 2008. -
Dolley Madison politically savvy
By Cokie and Steven V. Roberts/Syndicated columnists
When Dolley Payne Madison became first lady in 1809, she instituted Wednesday evening gatherings at the White House where political rivals could meet and talk. They were called “squeezes” because so many people showed up and crowded the room. As Cokie wrote in her book “Ladies of Liberty": “All were welcome as long as they were appropriately dressed. And all went — skipping a Wednesday night might mean missing a vital piece of political information or being left out of a crucial deal.”
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Mississippi isn’t immune from national college tuition trends
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
Higher education in Mississippi has not been immune from national trends cited in a recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report which concludes that over the last five years, the global economic downturn and a “no new taxes” political climate have increasingly shifted the burden of higher education finance to students and parents at a time when enrollment is increasing and the percentage of state support is decreasing. -
Right to vote not ‘racial entitlement
By Donna Brazile/Syndicated columnist
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Shelby County v. Holder — a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, specifically Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voting discrimination against racial and language minorities to get “pre-approved” by the federal government before changing how elections are conducted or voters are registered. -
1st day of spring brings memories
By Wyatt Emmerich/Southside Sun
The first day of spring! My favorite month, April, is just around the corner. Now we just need one big gullywasher to get rid of the pine pollen.
Normally, spring gives me a strong sense of rebirth and renewal, but this spring I seem surrounded by moments crystallizing the passage of time.
It was a year ago, I walked up the porch to my mother’s home to box up her possessions following her funeral. -
Soaking up in tiger paw-shaped hot tub
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
No springtime ritual was better at Auburn than sitting on hard rocks at a nearby state park to let cold water rush over your feet. You wore cut-off blue jeans and Dr. Scholl’s sandals, the unofficial uniform for coeds in the 1970s, and when you left, you felt ready to tackle tests, term papers and blind dates.
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Medicaid or not, costs will be paid
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While the battle continues between state Republicans and other fiscal conservatives intent on focusing on the long-terms costs of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and Democrats, health care advocates and state hospitals intent on focusing on the short-term benefits, the fact remains that one way or another, the costs of providing health care for the poor, the blind, the aged and the disabled will be paid by the taxpayers one way or another.
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Multiculturalism is not rational
By Thomas Sowell/Syndicated columnist
Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world, few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of multiculturalism.
Intellectuals who imagine that they are helping racial or ethnic groups that lag behind by redefining their lags out of existence with multicultural rhetoric are in fact leading them into a blind alley. - More Opinion Headlines
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
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