You have to give Gov.-elect Phil Bryant credit.
Gov.-elect Phil Bryant
He is jumping in with both feet to work on campaign promises.
>> Read more about healthcare in Mississippi
Bryant is set to lead a trip to Houston, Texas, to tour Texas Medical Center on Nov. 29-30.
Bryant, who will become governor in January, will be joined by Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr., Flowood Mayor Gary Rhoads and some health care providers and business leaders.
Texas Medical Center consists of 49 institutions and is recognized as the largest medical center in the world. TMC has 162 buildings on its main campus, nearly 7,000 patient beds, over 90,000 employees, and 71,500 students.
Bryant has proposed creating a hospital city in Jackson, and the Texas Medical Center is a great place to emulate.
We hope that Bryant is able to find the same type of money from the private sector that Texas has been able to collect over the last 50 years.
A friend of mine in the fund-raising business for hospitals says that finding people to give huge amounts of money for healthcare these days is difficult.
Having said that, we applaud Bryant’s efforts.
Of course, one of the things Bryant could do immediately would be to ramp up the discussion on prevention and education.
We harken back to the recent story, “Life Expectancy Falling in 561 Rural Counties” by Bill Bishop that documents the fact that life expectancy is declining in more rural areas than urban ones. Read it. The first thing, though, that pops out is that 14 of the top (uh, worst) 50 counties in America with the shortest life expectancies are in Mississippi, including the top (worst) seven.
Then, there was the report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that highlighted Mississippi and Alabama as the only two states, which continue to apply their sales tax fully to food purchased for home consumption without providing any offsetting relief for low- and moderate-income families.
Gosh, if Mississippians were able to purchase more healthy foods, maybe they wouldn’t have such short lifespans.
There’s more. Men’s Health magazine ranked Jackson No. 3 in the nation as part of its “Laziest City in America” series.
We definitely need a hospital city as well as lots of sidewalks leading up to it so we can exercise on the way to being treated for obesity and heart disease.
So, with one of the slowest growing economies in the nation because of poor education and health care, Bryant’s feeling that healthcare is a prime issue is refreshing.
Starting with the elimination of corn-based sodas from K-12 campuses could jump-start all of Bryant’s plans. We agree.
We also agree that his trip to Houston is productive and a step in the right direction.
