There’s a reason first-term House Speaker Jason White has been more outspoken in his support of Medicaid expansion than perhaps any other Mississippi Republican leader.
It’s true that Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has spoken favorably about Medicaid expansion for years, but he was slow to act, mostly because he knew it would be difficult to get a bill out of his conservative Senate.
But even before White was officially selected as the Republican nominee to serve as speaker during the current 2024-2028 term, he made it clear that Medicaid expansion would be seriously debated and considered during his first year as House Speaker. White’s commitment was surprising since other leaders in his party, such as his predecessor, former Speaker Philip Gunn, and Governor Tate Reeves, had publicly opposed Medicaid expansion and even blocked debate on it. issue.
But true to his word, a bill to expand Medicaid to provide health care to the working poor was one of the first measures to pass the House, by an overwhelming 99-20 margin, with a large majority from White’s Republican caucus. voting in favor of the legislation.
The proposal then died during the final days of the 2024 session, when the House and Senate could not reach a consensus on what would have been a historic measure.
But both White and Hosemann have said they expect Medicaid expansion to be back on the table in the 2025 legislative session.
READ MORE: Speaker White on Medicaid expansion negotiations: ‘Come for the savings, stay for the compassion’
At the end of the 2024 session, White was asked why he supported Medicaid expansion.
White smiled and shrugged before saying, “I don’t know, maybe I see it differently. Maybe it’s because my wife works in the healthcare industry. She is a nurse practitioner. She sees patients in Holmes and Carroll counties, where there is much to be desired. They do a great job, but it’s hard. So you see that.”
White went on to say that he has seen the negative impact of potential hospital closures on some of the communities in his district.
Additionally, he said he is a small-town attorney who has served in various positions, including juvenile court judge.
“In those environments you get a great cross-section of Mississippi,” he said.
“I’d like to tell you it’s because I’m brave, but it’s more coming from voters and constituents saying it’s time to do this,” White continued.
While most recent Republican leaders come from the more affluent suburbs of the Jackson metropolitan area, White is from rural Holmes County, one of the poorest areas of the country on the edge of the Mississippi Delta. The 48th District he represents is a large rural area of central Mississippi.
READ MORE: President White foresees major cuts to Mississippi income and grocery taxes for 2025 session
Make no mistake: White is conservative, Republican, and proud of it.
The House, under White’s leadership, passed Republican-sponsored legislation to restrict trans people from using the bathroom of the sex they identify with on college and high school campuses and to prevent citizens from gathering signatures to include them on ballot proposals to ease Mississippi’s near-total ban on abortion. .
He said he supports school vouchers, which are the holy grail for many Republicans. But he adds that the Republican-dominated House of Representatives as a whole is not as supportive as he is of sending public funds to private schools.
White notes that he won nearly 80% of the vote in the party’s 2023 primary election.
But White could also be described as a bridge between the so-called rural white Democrats who controlled the Mississippi House of Representatives for decades and today’s Republicans who currently hold a more than two-thirds majority in the House.
There are some similarities between Republicans and rural white Democrats. Many of the Mississippi Democrats who controlled the House before Republicans took it from them were social conservatives, opposed to abortion rights and in favor of gun rights. But over decades, those rural white Democrats expanded the state’s role in health care by growing the state’s original Medicaid program because they saw that the money the federal government was willing to offer the state for a more robust Medicaid program It was good for Mississippi and its people. .
In 2011, rural white Democrats were making a last stand to maintain control of the House. The 2011 election is the only one in state history in which it was unclear which party would end up controlling the Mississippi House of Representatives.
White ran for election that year as one of those rural white Democrats.
Republicans won a narrow majority in 2011, taking control of the House for the first time since the 19th century. White also won and before he finished his first year in the House, he moved into the Republican majority.
But some of the principles of those conservative rural Democrats could remain in their political DNA.
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