Sen. Walter Michel plans to continue his quest so that Mississippians can join a wine-of-the-month club at a winery, place an order and have it direct shipped to a home address.
As it stands now, Mississippi residents must have their orders shipped to a liquor store.
“We got a close vote last year,” said Michel, who represents District 25 that includes Hinds and Madison counties.
For several years, Michel has faithfully introduced a bill that would change the direct ship law, but the Legislature has failed to pass it.
The bill Michel introduced during the 2024 session concerning the direct shipment of wine received the most momentum. “We tried to appease the liquor store owners by making it only bottles of wine that they don’t sell,” he said.
The state’s law that requires liquor ordered from an out-of-state provider be direct shipped to a liquor store is in place to ensure the Mississippi Department of Revenue collects the taxes it is due on the liquor.
In other legislative years, Michel has also introduced a bill that would allow Mississippi grocery stores to sell wine with a higher alcohol content than what’s currently permitted. Grocery stores can sell wine with an alcohol content of 6 percent or less while only liquor stores and wine shops are permitted to sell wine with a higher alcohol content.
Michel serves as chair of the Senate Insurance Committee and vice chair of the Senate Rules Committee. He is a member of these committees: Appropriations, Energy, Forestry, Housing, Interstate and Federal Cooperation, Universities and colleges and Veterans and Military Affairs.
After the 2024 session, Michel spent time speaking throughout the state about new laws concerning insurance, including one that streamlined the prior authorization process that comes into play for healthcare patients and providers.
Under the new law that took effect on July 1, 2024, prior authorization is not required for emergency services.
Prior authorization is the process by which a health insurance issuer determines the medical necessity and medical appropriateness of an otherwise covered health care service before the rendering of such health care service.
For urgent services or procedures, insurance companies have 48 hours to process requests, unless a longer minimum time frame is required under federal law for the health insurance issuer and the urgent health care service at issue.
For non-urgent services, insurance companies have seven working days to process requests. Insurance companies have two business days for prior authorization requests for pharmaceutical services and products in non-urgent cases.
The law prohibits health insurance issuers from denying a claim for failure to obtain prior authorization if the prior authorization requirement was not in effect on the date of service on the claim.
The new law requires health insurance issuers to maintain a complete list of services for which prior authorizations are required and to make any current prior authorization requirements and restrictions readily accessible and posted on their website.
By Jan. 1, health insurance issuers or their designated utilization review organizations were to make available a standardized electronic prior authorization request transaction process using an internet webpage, an internet webpage portal or a similar electronic-, internet- and web-based system.
All health care professionals and health care providers are required to use the standardized electronic prior authorization request transaction no later than Jan. 1, 2027.
The law gives Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney’s office the responsibility for enforcing the law and establishes a fine for failure to comply with the law. “If there’s problem, there’s the opportunity for the Mississippi Department of Insurance to have a hearing and administer a fine,” Michel said.
Another law that Michel spoke about prohibits health benefit plans from requiring step therapy or first-fail protocols before providing coverage of certain prescription drugs to treat advanced, metastatic cancer and the symptoms or side effects associated with it or its treatment.
The law allows a patient to receive the most effective drug rather than having to first try drugs that are ineffective, Michel said.
The law prohibiting step therapy includes a repealer, which means it will cease to be in effect after two years, Michel said. The law went into effect on July 1, 2024 and be repealed on June 30, 2026.
Also passed during the 2024 session was the Living Donor Protection Act, which went into effect on July 1, 2024. It bans life, disability and long-term care insurance providers from discriminating against living organ donors by refusing to insure them, limiting their coverage or forcing them to pay a different rate or premium because they are organ donors, from declining or limiting coverage under any policy and discriminating against such an individual solely due to the status of being a living donor.
“We made it clear that in Mississippi if someone gives a kidney to someone, we don’t want them to lose their medical coverage,” Michel said.
Also passed during the 2024 session was a bill that allows counties, municipalities, and school districts to pool their risks and negotiate for the purchase of property insurance so they can establish a self-insurance fund or self-insurance reserves or any combination of those.
“The Mississippi Triage,Treat and Transport to Alternative Destination Act,” a bill that was also passed this year, increases how much insurance companies must pay ambulance firms for services provided.
Under the act, third-party payors are required to pay for treatment in place when a patient is not transported to a hospital. “We made it such that an ambulance service should get paid for treating someone in place, even if they’re not taken to a hospital,” Michel said.
The act also re-aligned the payment rates for ambulance service close to Medicare rates, he said.
Another law that came from the 2024 session make it possible for nonprofit agricultural membership organizations such as Mississippi Farm Bureau to provide healthcare insurance for its members and their families, Michel said.
Allowing nonprofit agricultural membership organizations to provide healthcare insurance for their members will help make additional healthcare plans available, he said.
