An interesting article from Politico shows that Mississippi was instituting a program—known as One Mississippi—that would allow small businesses employees to come together to purchase insurance at lower rates. It was seen as a conservative politically as it helped those who were working to access healthcare. This is exactly what one of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act did. However, support for “Obamacare” was low.
But the Affordable Care Act had descended on Mississippi like so many prior federal edicts: as an invasion from the North that fractured along racial lines, stoking long-held grievances against the federal government…There is a stark racial disconnect between the Tea Party’s ascendant politics—and its almost exclusively white leadership—and the state’s black voters, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Whites dominate Mississippi’s elected elite, despite the fact that Mississippi is home to a higher percentage of African-Americans—37 percent—than any other state.
When ACA did come to Mississippi, the options weren’t particularly attractive for residents.
Still, when the federal website, HealthCare.gov, made its disastrous debut on October 1, just four counties had two insurers competing for business; the rest had only a single choice…By December 2013, the scope of Mississippi’s disaster had a number: A grand total of 802 people in the state had signed up for Obamacare.