We Mississippians like to use the phrase "bless your heart" and it usually precedes an expression of pity.
If Mississippi were an individual, here's what I might say to that "person."
Mississippi, bless your heart, you have failed yet AGAIN! You were just ranked last in the nation for overall measures of healthcare. I've known you all of my life so I know you well and I love you but as long as I can remember, you have failed in most measurements, whether it be education or healthcare or income. And regardless of what your governor, Tate Reeves and your lt. governor, Delbert Hosemann are saying in their re-election commercials, you have little to be proud of.
Just in healthcare alone, your rural hospitals are closing, St. Dominic is cutting staff, your health department is underfunded, your citizens are suffering and dying because Reeves and Hosemann refuse to expand Medicaid causing you to lose 12 BILLION in federal dollars, psychiatric and obstetric care has been reduced, and the list goes on and on.
Were it not for the federal government, you would go belly up because you get back much more than you pay in making you a leech on our nation's economy. Yet nothing ever gets better with you. Why is that?
Could it be that you can't get your head out of your politics long enough to see that politicians like Reeves and Hosemann are leading you astray for their own personal political gain?
And what about your profession of faith in Jesus, who taught us to care for the sick and the poor? Would Jesus expand Medicaid and raise your pathetic $7.25/hr. minimum wage? His teachings tell me he would. But you won't. Bless your heart, Mississippi, I think you might be a hypocrite.
You remind me of a dog that keeps eating its own regurgitation. It's not pretty but you do it every time you elect a politician just because they have an (R) by their name. Even though they care less about you and more about their own agenda.
All I can say is .... bless your heart, Mississippi.
Camille Wright is a Northsider.
