Democratic candidate for governor in Mississippi Brandon Presley hit Republican Tate Reeves hard on Medicaid expansion during their one and only debate this Wednesday. Democrats have been hammering Reeves for refusing to expand Medicaid in their state for some time now as the Sun-Sentinel recently reported:

Less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 statewide election, top Democratic leaders are continuing to pound the drum on Mississippi’s hospital crisis and the need for state officials to expand Medicaid coverage to the working poor.

Speaking on the front steps of the state Capitol on Wednesday morning, three Democratic lawmakers sharply criticized Republican Gov. Tate Reeves for standing in the way of expansion, which experts estimate would generate billions for the state.

“He’ll tell you over and over that it’s Mississippi’s time,” House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III said. “For who, governor? Who are you talking about? You and your donors? Because I don’t think the people in my district and community will describe what they see as Mississippi momentum.”

Reeves’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but the governor has said in previous remarks that he remains opposed to expansion and derisively calls the proposal “welfare expansion.” The governor’s Democratic challenger Brandon Presley, meanwhile, has made health care one of the major themes of his campaign platform and has promised to expand Medicaid on “day one” that he’s sworn into office.

Almost half of Mississippi’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure, according to one report. Many financially struggling hospitals cite major losses on uncompensated care, or services provided to people without health insurance coverage — emergency rooms by law cannot turn patients away, regardless of their coverage status.

Reeves has also said he's opposed to taking the funding because his state could not afford to put up 10% of the matching funds to draw down the federal fund, but as Mississippi Today reported last month, that argument doesn't hold water:

But there’s another option at the governor’s disposal. He could take a portion of that increased hospital assessment/tax (about $100 million) and draw down more than $1 billion annually in Medicaid expansion funds as 40 other states have done. Those funds would be used to provide health insurance to tens of thousands of the working poor. Medicaid expansion would allow hospitals to receive payments when they provide services to the working poor and would allow the working poor to access other medical services, such as primary care physicians, who might be able to prevent them from needing more expensive hospital care down the road.

Reeves was asked about his refusal to expand Medicaid right out of the box at the debate, and made a very lame attempt to defend the indefensible, which Presley did an excellent job of dismantling:

REEVES: Medicaid expansion is a topic that's been discussed often in the state, in fact, it's probably the topic that my team and I have worked on more than anything else, and at the end of the day, what we have determined is, it does not make sense for the people of Mississippi.

It does not make sense for the people of Mississippi because, if you were to add 300,000 people to the Medicaid rolls, about 100,000 of those individuals would actually be currently on private insurance. That's private insurance. That's taking 100,000 people that are currently on private insurance, and putting them on the government roll. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

And so, it's much like what President Obama said when he passed the Affordable Care Act. He said if you like your doctor, you can keep it. That didn't turn out to be true, and the fact is, if you're out there on private insurance, you might lose yours if my opponent's proposal goes into effect.

[…]

PRESLEY: When it comes to Medicaid expansion, look, the results are clear. 230,000 working Mississippians tonight, these are folks who are sacking groceries, these are folks who are out roofing houses, people who are working in hotels at night, scrubbing toilets and changing sheets on beds, people that take jobs that Tate Reeves would never take, that are working every day that deserve health care.

Forty states in this country have expanded Medicaid, including states like Oklahoma where Donald Trump carried every county in the state of Oklahoma. So this is not about politics. This is about people. We have lost a billion dollars a year by not expanding Medicaid in Mississippi. It is an idea that's time has come. It's past time to do it, and as governor I would take steps on day one to expand Medicaid and join forty other states. Take the billion dollars a year. Save thirty four rural hospitals. Get insurance to 230,000 working Mississippians and create sixteen thousand good health care jobs.

[…]

REEVES: Well, I think the people of Mississippi know that my opponent, when he qualified to run for governor, he couldn't make it an entire hour without lying to the people of Mississippi, and on this debate stage, he couldn't make it one full minute, without lying to the people of Mississippi. He doesn't have the authority to do anything on the first day in office, but like everything else he proposes, he simply is lying to the people of Mississippi.

PRESLEY: Let me just respond to that for just a minute. I don't know if the governor doesn't know the authority of his job or not, but the governor can file for a Section 11-15 waiver, and he has the, actually, the Division of Medicaid is under the governor's office.

We all know that if Tate Reeves wanted to expand Medicaid, it would have already been expanded. The truth of the matter is Tate, there's a majority in the House, Senate, of Democrats and Republicans right now that want to expand Medicaid, and you're standing in the way of 230,000 working people that have jobs that you're too good to do yourself, that would get the benefit if in fact we expanded Medicaid. It's time has come.

The polling shows the race is close. It would be nice to see Reeves get the boot.