Pender – More Medicaid fear and loathing
The letters/statements/recriminations over Medicaid expansion continue around the Capitol. In response to statements Gov. Phil Bryant made in a Thursday Clarion-Ledger article, House Minority Leader Bobby Moak issued the following:
STATEMENT OF BOBBY MOAK
Governor Bryant has served as a State Representative, State Auditor, Lt. Governor, and now Governor. While Lt. Governor, he also served as chairman of the Legislative Budget Committee. During all of that time, over more than two decades, Governor Bryant never complained about waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program. Now, in response to our compromise proposal for Medicaid expansion, the Governor has, for the first time this session, claimed the Medicaid program is rife with waste, fraud and abuse and should therefore not be expanded. Apparently, in the last few days, it has come to the Governor’s attention that a program he has been managing for more than 14 months is now fraught with waste, fraud and abuse. If that is the case, it has happened on his watch. During the last administration, on any number of occasions, Governor Barbour’s director of Medicaid bragged to the Legislative Budget Committee about how successful Mississippi’s Medicaid law enforcement program has been. If this current administration has allowed fraud to occur, the people of Mississippi deserve to know the details. If not, the Governor owes all of the hard-working doctors, hospital employees, nursing home staff, and other health care providers an apology.
Meanwhile, a group of Democratic state Senators, angered by a recent letter from Bryant, responded with this:
Magnolia Tribune
