Governors Take On Health Care Reform

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas announces new health care initiative at NGA meeting

Hundreds of thousands of Mississippians are without adequate healthcare, and at this year's National Governor's Conference in Biloxi the nation's governors created a new initiative to try and address the nation's growing healthcare problem. MPB's Phoebe Judge has more.

The final order of business at this year’s National Governors Association Conference in Biloxi was the announcement of a new health care reform initiative by the incoming chairman republican of Vermont Jim Douglas. As Congress continues to debate health care reform legislation, Governor Douglas made a call to his fellow governors to define what the state’s role will be in that reform,

“The need for healthcare reform is critical, regardless of who pays. The government or the private sector, we are all going to pay more unless we can get a handle of spiraling healthcare costs. We can’t sustain our current level of spending. We must control costs and provide value in our system, but it will take a range of efforts to be successful.”

Many of the nation’s governors have expressed concerns that new healthcare reforms will dramatically increase Medicaid costs at a time when states are struggling with decreasing state revenues and deep budget cuts. Governor Barbour, acknowledges that Mississippi which leads the nation in rates of obesity and cardiovascular disease, has real health issues, but says he doesn’t support a government run health care system, or the health care reform bills being debated in Congress,

“They are trying to jam it through overnight. This is one of the biggest elements of the American economy, and I think everybody knows the American people need to know more about what congress is considering before Congress votes on it.”

The proposed health care reform bills include large increases in Medicaid eligibility, the national health care system which pays for medical services for low income citizens. Mississippi currently has 598,000 residents enrolled in the Medicaid program, and spent 4.6 billion dollars in state and federal money on the program last year. With the state leading the country in so many health related illnesses that number has the potential to swell if new health care reform bills are passed.