An article in the LA Times reports:
Mississippi is one of eight states that cut its Medicaid rolls between 2004 and 2008, according to enrollment data analyzed for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. In the same period, the number of Mississippi children living in poverty increased.
Enrollment in Medicaid has begun creeping back up more recently. But the governor has said Mississippi cannot afford to insure any more people, even with the extra help from Washington.
"This new law will ultimately force the state to raise taxes, as hundreds of thousands of new people will be added to our Medicaid rolls," Barbour said.
Mississippi will have to find about $429 million over the next decade, a nearly 5% increase in Medicaid spending, according to an estimate by the Urban Institute, a left-leaning Washington-based think tank. But the federal government has agreed to kick in an estimated $9.9 billion over the same period to help Mississippi, enough to allow the state to cut in half the number of poor adults without insurance.
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