Geoff Pender: Make special session ‘special’
Lock up the lawn furniture and keep the kids inside — all indications are Gov. Phil Bryant this week will call the Legislature back to Jackson for an “extraordinary” session to try to end the Great Medicaid Staring Contest of 2013.
Let’s hope it’s extraordinarily short and not too extraordinarily expensive or painful to watch. And that the state-federal health care program that serves more than 640,000 poor, sickly Mississippians and employs thousands doesn’t extraordinarily shut down July 1.
The cost to taxpayers usually cited for a special session is $30,000 a day. That’s to pay, house and feed lawmakers and gas up their cars. But that doesn’t include extra staffing, supplies, air conditioning to cool down all the hot air and the general pain and suffering of the commonwealth.
Clarion Ledger
6/24/13
Magnolia Tribune
