Business Blog

The healthiest Mississippians live in Desoto County and the least healthiest in the Delta’s Quitman County. Those are among the conclusions in the fourth annual County Health Rankings released Wednesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The County Health Rankings rank the overall health of nearly every [...]

A measure that will provide $8 million for Workforce Enhancement Training at community colleges received Gov. Phil Bryant’s signature Wednesday. The colleges will use the WET fund money to provide training for jobs and skills that employers have identified as being in demand. “For Mississippi to compete in a global marketplace, we must have a [...]

The Mississippi Legislature is set to adjourn April 7 with no deal in sight on a federal offer to expand Medicaid. The ticking clock has executives of hospitals around the state worried that time will expire and hospitals and the entire health care sector will suffer the consequences, putting about 9,000 jobs at risk. Ahead [...]

Most politicians know Mr. Pot should think twice before calling Mr. Kettle names. Oh, they can enthusiastically besmirch each other’s policies and positions, but name calling besmirches the namer more than the named. So it was in Rep. Steve Holland’s hand written note last week to Gov. Phil Bryant. “I think you’re a fool to [...]

Where have you been? That’s a question Mississippi’s hospital executives should have to answer as the Legislature winds down and Republican leaders in both houses refuse to think pragmatically about expanding Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act. The hospital CEOs and the Mississippi Hospital Association seem to have been largely absent from the wrangling [...]

The number of governors refusing to accept the federal offer of hundreds of millions of dollars for expanding Medicaid to their state’s working poor is dwindling, with Florida Gov. Rick Scott Wednesday joining Ohio’s Gov. John Kasich and Michigan’s Rick Snyder in accepting the offer. More than two dozen governors continue to hold out against [...]

Gov. Phil Bryant’s pronouncement last week that hospital emergency room access ensures that all Mississippians have health care reflects a poor understanding of how healthcare works for many of the state’s families, the Mississippi Center for Justice says. Replying to Bryant’s statement in an interview with Kaiser Health News, the public-interest law firm also criticized [...]

’Ole Miss has its black bear. Not to be outdone, the Governor’s Office has its pander bear. What besides a pander to the “civil-war-is-around-the corner “ crowd could be behind Gov. Phil Bryant’s order to his lieutenants in the Legislature to adopt measures that have their foundation in the long-discredited mid 19th century idea of [...]

  In a public gesture that appears to seal the contribution of state funds for a new University of Mississippi Medical School building in Jackson, Gov. Phil Bryant led a ceremonial ground breaking for the $63 million project Monday. The building will be the first new facility on the Jackson campus since the school began [...]

  JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s proposed health insurance exchange is in limbo because of a dispute between the governor and the insurance commissioner. Gov. Phil Bryant and Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, both Republicans, disagree about which of them has authority to create a plan and submit it for federal approval. An exchange is an [...]