FILE - Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves delivers his State of the State address to the Mississippi State Legislature, Feb. 26, 2024, at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss. Reeves has signed a new law Tuesday, March 12, that will allow women to receive Medicaid coverage earlier in pregnancy.
The advocacy group Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable praised the new law, which passed the Republican-controlled Legislature with bipartisan support. Black infants in Mississippi were nearly twice as likely as white ones to die over the past decade, according to a report unveiled Jan. 18 by the state
House Medicaid Committee Chairwoman Missy McGee, a Republican from Hattiesburg, said the total cost to the Medicaid program will be just under $600,000 a year.were financed by Medicaid in 2022, according to the health policy research group KFF. Only Louisiana had a larger share of births covered by Medicaid that year, at 61%.from two months to a full year, with Reeves saying the change was part of a “new pro-life agenda” to help mothers in a state where abortion is tightly restricted.