BILL CRAWFORD: Agency leaders need legislature’s help

Published 11:00 am Sunday, October 30, 2022

State Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney asked the Legislature for help after breaking off mediation efforts between the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi. Chaney called “horrendous” the complaints his office has gotten from affected patients. “It’s deplorable that the citizens of our state are being used as pawns to settle this dispute,” he said.

Chaney has recognized he needs more authority to avoid such patient harming disputes. “I will be pursuing legislation in the 2023 Legislative Session to protect consumers in the future from getting caught in the middle of these types of contract disputes,” Chaney wrote in his mediation suspension notice.

Maybe his criticism of both parties and outreach to the Legislature will have impact. Rumors abound that the two will end their bitter dispute prior to year-end.

Chaney is not the only agency head frustrated with helplessness to deal with critical problems.

The anti-fraud HOPE Act passed by the Legislature in 2017 is giving Bob Anderson, the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services, fits. He told the Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families that the act over-polices poor people and prevents them from accessing child care. That keeps them from getting jobs.

And that causes a problem for Ryan Miller, head of the state workforce development agency, Accelerate Mississippi, who wants them in the workforce. “The number-one topic that continually comes up is child care, or lack of available child care,” he told the Senate study group as reported in Mississippi Today.

Then there is embattled State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney. Facing a “health care crisis in this state” we must deal with, he told Mississippi Public Broadcasting, “We are seeing an increasing number of hospitals entering a danger zone in their ability to operate and sustain operations.”

“We have to choose to do something about it,” he added. The problem is he and his State Department of Health have no means to help hospitals.

One in desperate need is Greenwood Leflore Hospital. “Hospital’s Negotiations With UMMC Stall” read the headline in the Greenwood Commonwealth. That means no help until next year if at all. At the MEC’s annual Hobnob last week Chaney told reporters he expected the hospital would have to close.

Out of cash, the hospital is cutting every service it can and still keep its doors open, reported the Commonwealth. It must maintain its limited in-patient services in order to maintain its licenses and certificates of need. Plus the hospital owes $5.6 million on a federal loan and must catch up on deferred maintenance for about $3.5 million before UMMC will sign a contract. The hospital has asked its city and county owners to cover those costs.

These executives’ have turned their eyes to the Legislature for help. Will the cash flush Legislature respond? Or will it turn its often blind eye to these dilemmas?

“I showed how you should work to help everyone who is weak” – Acts 20:25.

Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.