NESHOBA COUNTY, Miss.—Working Mississippians who want health care coverage need “better, more higher-paying jobs” that provide quality private insurance, not Medicaid expansion, Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at the Neshoba County Fair as he traded barbs with Democratic opponent Brandon Presley.
Presley zeroed in on hospitals that are closing and laying off workers across the state, saying he would “expand Medicaid to save hospitals” if elected. He said Reeves “doesn’t have the guts or the spine to fix our hospital problems.”
“He’s fiddling while our hospitals are burning to the ground, and he doesn’t care,” Presley added.
When asked for his thoughts on the hospital closures, Reeves deflected and said Presley “can’t talk about” his Democratic views or the governor’s “fantastic record.”
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“So he’s making up all these things that don’t make sense,” the Republican governor said to reporters.
Reeves said he wants to make health care more affordable and more accessible but did not offer a concrete plan to make that happen. Medicaid expansion would cover working Mississippians whose income is too high for traditional Medicaid but not high enough to afford private coverage or to qualify for help with federal subsidies.
“We need to open up our health care system to more competition,” he said.
Reeves sought to tie Presley to out-of-state Democrats while Presley blamed the incumbent for Mississippi’s failing hospitals.
“The national liberals have made Mississippi a target,” Reeves said in his speech. The governor claimed states like California are influencing the Mississippi Democratic party.
“(Presley’s) a liberal Democrat in Mississippi, so he can’t talk about what he believes. So, of course, he going to make up things and make up these pseudo campaigns and events that are occurring that he has no control over and I can do nothing about,” Reeves told reporters.
But Presley said Reeves and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have many similarities in lifestyle and politics, such as removing ‘In God We Trust’ from car tags and associating with upper-class people.
“Well, the governor hasn’t gotten anything else to run on besides calling someone a radical liberal,” he told members
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