Lawmakers explore using opioid settlement money to study the drug ibogaine
A high-ranking lawmaker is asking Mississippi to use $5 million of opioid settlement money to explore the medical potential of ibogaine, a drug with mixed evidence of its ability to safely treat addiction. At a meeting Thursday of the House and Senate committees that deal with public health, Republican Rep. Sam Creekmore of New Albany […]
Mississippi health officials declare emergency over infant mortality rate
The Mississippi State Department of Health on Thursday declared a public health emergency in response to a rising infant mortality rate in the state – most of which is occurring among Black babies. In 2024, Mississippi saw its highest rate of infant deaths in over a decade. Wake up informed Get the latest Mississippi news […]
Bill to correct outdated law barring IVF children from inheritance passes committee at eleventh hour
A bill that would designate children conceived in unique circumstances – via assisted reproduction after the death of one parent – as rightful heirs of their biological parents is moving forward. The bill passed the Judiciary A committee late on deadline day and now heads to the Senate floor, where it has died on the […]
Bill to correct outdated law barring IVF children from inheritance passes committee at eleventh hour
A bill that would designate children conceived in unique circumstances – via assisted reproduction after the death of one parent – as rightful heirs of their biological parents is moving forward. The bill passed the Judiciary A committee late on deadline day and now heads to the Senate floor, where it has died on the […]
Senate passes Medicaid expansion ‘lite’ with veto-proof majority
An austere version of Medicaid expansion, which for more than a decade has been blocked by legislative leaders, passed the Senate on Thursday 36-16 – a veto-proof majority – with significant changes to the original bill and now heads back to the House for consideration. House Bill 1725, with the Senate’s strike-all amendment, would increase […]
Mississippi lawmakers look to other states’ Medicaid expansions. Is Georgia worth copying?
As the Mississippi Republican-led Legislature considers expanding Medicaid for the first time after a decade-long debate, Senate leaders have referenced other Southern states’ expansion plans as alternatives to full expansion. On Wednesday, the Senate Medicaid Committee passed the House Republican expansion bill with a strike-all and replaced it with its own plan, which Medicaid Chairman […]
Senate committee passes Medicaid ‘expansion’ bill that leaves hundreds of millions in federal dollars on table
The only surviving Medicaid expansion bill in the Legislature passed the Senate Medicaid Committee Wednesday and is headed to the full Senate for a vote. But the proposal, as it passed the Senate committee, is not considered traditional “expansion” under the Affordable Care Act, and therefore would not qualify for the enhanced federal funding the […]
Five years later, this Mississippi mom is still fighting an outdated law blocking her child’s inheritance
After giving birth to her “miracle baby,” Katie Studdard thought her trials and tribulations were over. In the span of three years, she had undergone multiple uterine surgeries, suffered through an arduous in vitro fertilization process costing tens of thousands of dollars, and lost her husband to cancer. “Having a child was a dream for […]
Doctors plead with Senate to ‘do right’ and expand Medicaid
Several dozen doctors and health care leaders gathered at the Capitol Thursday to advocate for Medicaid expansion and call on Senate leaders – who have remained quiet on the House expansion bill that sits in their chamber – to close the state’s health care coverage gap. “I’m calling on the Senate to do right and […]
Taxpayers Were Overcharged for Patient Meds. Then Came the Lawyers.
Shalina Chatlani examined the health care system in Mississippi as a part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship. In 2018, when Mike DeWine was Ohio’s attorney general, he began investigating an obscure corner of the health care industry. He believed that insurers were inflating prescription drug prices through management companies that operated as middlemen in the […]