Recent editorials from Mississippi newspapers:
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Aug. 7
The Greenwood Commonwealth on the threat of wild hogs:
The biggest threat from “outside agitators” these days in Mississippi comes from four-legged, longsnouted, two-tusked creatures with voracious appetites and no natural foes.
Yes, non-native wild hogs are a serious danger to the state’s leading industry, agriculture. The feral pigs cause more than $66 million in property damage annually in the state, according to the Mississippi State Extension Service.
Traveling in large groups called “sounders,” they are wily, destructive beasts. They can quickly level acres of row crops, devour fawns and the young of other native animals and are adept at avoiding capture.
And the rapidly reproducing hogs continue to expand throughout Mississippi, being found in all 82 counties today versus just 23 counties in 1988, the Extension Service says.
So it makes sense for Commissioner of Agriculture Andy Gipson to take on the issue, even if it’s part of the incumbent’s election pitch. He announced at the Neshoba County Fair last week the “Commissioner’s Wild Hog Challenge.”
“We don’t need to talk about it anymore; we need to kill some hogs!” the Republican declared.
Hunters are encouraged to report hogs they harvest in August and September to the Agriculture Department, which has a website set up for submitting kills. State law allows the hunting of the nuisance animals year-round, day or night, with no weapon restrictions on private land. Hunters who want to enter the commissioner’s competition must report when and where they hunted the pig, along with sending a photograph and other details.
Each participant will be entered into a drawing for a $6,000 wild hog trapping system, and the slayer of the heaviest hog will earn his or her choice of two rifles. Winners will be announced at the state fair in October.
As of Aug. 6, the state reported 367 wild hogs harvested from eight counties.
Of course, the challenge is more a publicity stunt than a practical attempt to lower the hog population.
The Mississippi State Extension Service advises “sport hunting alone is not nearly as effective as trapping and killing” wild hogs, and the Agriculture Department says “the purpose of the challenge is to raise awareness regarding these nuisance animals and their huge negative impact on agriculture.”
But hunting more hogs certainly won’t hurt. Considering the vast numbers of native animals that mankind has overhunted to the point of extinction without even trying to do so, you figure it would work well with an intentional effort against a non-native species.
With the limited hunting restrictions, it can be a fun diversion and challenge for Mississippi hunters waiting for deer season, while at the same time addressing a needed public policy goal.
Thus, we join with Gibson’s sentiments and say to hunters, “Go forth and make bacon.”
Online: https://www.gwcommonwealth.com
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Aug. 6
The Vicksburg Post on controversy over the Mississippi Wildlife Federation’s position on flood mitigation pumping:
As children grow up, one teaching moment for parents is showing their children that decisions have consequences. There are moments when a child makes a good decision and is rewarded, while the opposite is also true.
This is an important life lesson, as every action we take and decision we make is met with a reaction or a consequence.
If you decide to hit the snooze button three too many times and have to speed to work, the speeding ticket and higher insurance costs are the consequences for your decision to sleep in. Lesson learned.
When it comes to businesses and organizations, decisions are also met with consequences - both good and bad.
The Mississippi Wildlife Federation is facing the consequences of decisions it has made. A non-profit organization established in 1946, the Federation says its mission “is to conserve Mississippi’s natural resources and protect our wildlife legacy.”
But it is not their mission that is at odds with many today. It is their longstanding position on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to complete the flood mitigation plan in the Yazoo Backwater Area by installing pumps.
Their position is based on a belief that pumps would damage the environment, threaten wetlands and harm wildlife.
Claims on social media that the Federation blocked a group promoting the completion of the flood project and installation of the pumps from attending their annual Wildlife Extravaganza brought its stance into the spotlight.
Officials with the Federation say the group was not prevented from attending, but waitlisted since the event was out of space.
Regardless of what actually happened, news of the slight went viral.
As it became widely known that the Federation was opposed to the pumps - pumps that experts agree would have significantly curtailed the effects of a historic and devastating flood in the Yazoo Backwater Area - one vendor after another canceled their booths at last weekend’s Extravaganza.
Throughout the latter part of the week, groups, organizations, and businesses - and of course, elected officials - flooded social media with comments distancing themselves from both the event and the Federation’s position.
The public had spoken and a consequence of the Federation’s longstanding position was felt.
This is the way democracy works. There was no revolt, no guns drawn, nor any disparaging remarks made - well not a lot of disparaging remarks anyway.
Will the Federation change its position on the pumps? Probably not, as the Federation stands by its position.
Are they wrong? We believe so. The evidence in support of the backwater pumps is mounting. The horrible effects of more than 70 years of not completing the project are too.
Just as they do in elections, the people spoke with their voices and their actions last week in boycotting and stepping away from the Wildlife Federation’s Wildlife Extravaganza.
Now, let’s hope that voice and those actions lead to other decisions - made by our federal government - in getting this project completed sooner rather than later. Remember, decisions have consequences.
Online: https://www.vicksburgpost.com
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Aug. 6
The Enterprise-Journal on Medicaid refusal:
Consider the following scenario: An outside entity approaches Mississippi and says that it wants to invest a billion dollars a year in the state indefinitely and create thousands of new jobs. The only catch is that the state has to put up $100 million a year, too.
The governor and other state leaders balk because they are not sure about coming up with their part, even though a respected national economist has shown that the business activity generated by that outside entity’s investment will produce at least an extra $100 million in new tax revenue, and possibly double that.
To convince the governor further, the companies that expect to do business with this billion-dollars-a-year investor offer to kick in the $100 million match by drawing from their own coffers and charging a modest monthly fee to their customers.
The governor still thumbs his nose at the offer. What would be the reaction? A movement to have the governor declared mentally incompetent and removed from office? Most likely.
Yet, something like that is taking place in Mississippi with its stupendously irrational decision to not expand Medicaid to cover about 300,000 of the working poor.
Gov. Phil Bryant wouldn’t do it during his two terms in office. And his supposedly ordained Republican successor, Tate Reeves, has pledged that he won’t do it either.
Meanwhile, dozens of rural hospitals in the state are tanking, in part because they don’t have enough paying patients to offset those whom they are legally obliged to treat but who can’t pay.
Had the Affordable Care Act - with its sweet offer to bankroll nearly the entire cost of insuring most of the uninsured - been pushed by a Republican president instead of Barack?Obama, Mississippi would have been first in line to sign up for expanding Medicaid and the federally funded economic bonanza that comes with it.
But because of the political mileage to be made with the GOP’s ultra-conservative base by opposing anything associated with Obama, Mississippi has not even gotten in line yet, letting the money go instead to 36 other states, including two of its neighbors.
The Mississippi Hospital Association, seeing that a straightforward?Medicaid expansion was getting nowhere with the state’s GOP leadership, has offered what it expected would be a more palatable alternative, calling it “Medicaid reform” instead of “Medicaid expansion.”
Under the MHA plan, the state’s 10 percent match to get the extra federal money would be covered in full by splitting the cost between the newly insured, who would pay a $20-per-month premium for the coverage, and the hospitals themselves.
The hospital association has provided an analysis, prepared by a former Baylor economics professor, Ray Perryman, who ran the numbers for Mississippi when Republicans passed tort reform.
Perryman estimates that if Mississippi were to adopt the MHA plan, it would produce a $36 billion economic benefit over an 11-year period from the increase in health-care spending and a healthier population; create or sustain the equivalent of more than 36,000 jobs annually; and also add $200 million a year to the state treasury.
Meanwhile, uncompensated care, which costs the state’s hospitals more than $600 million a year, would drop by 40 percent, and patients with private insurance, who currently subsidize those who don’t have insurance, would see a $50 million a year decrease in premiums.
The two other candidates in (the) GOP primary for governor, Bill Waller Jr. and Robert Foster, like the MHA plan. So does the expected Democratic nominee, Jim Hood.
Only Reeves is not impressed, at the Neshoba County Fair that he is the “only candidate running for governor that opposes Obamacare expansion in Mississippi.”
Wonder why? Maybe it’s because the?MHA plan would give the state’s hospitals their first slice of the Medicaid managed care business, competition that one of Reeves’ biggest contributors opposes.
Magnolia Health has been raking in more than $100 million a year from the state’s partial privatization of its Medicaid program, which began almost a decade ago.
In 2017, the state’s hospitals, with the Legislature’s blessing, created a nonprofit managed care company, Mississippi True, to provide the same service at potentially less cost than Magnolia Health. The Medicaid Division, however, shunned Mississippi True, instead awarding the current three-year contract to Magnolia and two other publicly traded managed care companies.
Magnolia is betting on Reeves staying in its corner. From 2016 to 2018, its parent company or subsidiaries put $160,000 into his campaign fund, contributing significantly to Reeves’ huge money advantage in the governor’s race.
Will it be money well spent?
Online: https://www.enterprise-journal.com
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