Advocates explore ways to boost health affordability and food security in Mississippi

Despite outperforming most of the nation in education, Mississippi ranks last on overall child well-being, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s latest KIDS COUNT Data Book, particularly in health and poverty. 

During a “Families Count in the Deep South” event hosted by Mississippi Today on Tuesday, the newsroom’s staff joined leaders from health, education and community engagement across the state to highlight gains, build momentum for a way forward and bring data from the report to life.

Voting rights affect children’s well-being

“‘Families count’ must mean something beyond counting families in a report. It must mean their lives count when decisions are made,” said Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat from Jackson, addressing about two dozen people in the Mississippi Public Broadcasting Auditorium in Jackson. 

Summers, the event’s keynote speaker, called on her colleagues in the Legislature to prioritize funding childcare, maternal health and education. 

She also gave a nod to problems that have arisen during the latest midterm elections, and said the chaos highlights the need for easier online voter registration, early voting and universal suffrage. Summers said voting rights are intertwined with children’s well-being because they determine who is given the power to make decisions that will affect future generations. 

Mississippi ranks 50th in health and 49th in economic well-being, but the state has secured 16th place in education – what many have dubbed “the Mississippi miracle.” Nationwide, Mississippi scored second-to-last in on issues of family and community, such as teen pregnancy, single-parent families, households lacking college degrees and high poverty areas. 

Summers urged stakeholders to bring the same urgency they brought to childhood literacy to alleviating childhood poverty. 

“Before we finish the story of Mississippi’s so-called miracle, we must make room for the children whose lives still demand a different ending,” Summers said. 

Families face food insecurity

During a panel that explored food insecurity across the state, speakers highlighted the fact that 1 in 4 children face hunger. In Jefferson County School District, where Adrian Hammitte serves as superintendent, that’s 1 in 3 children. Hammitte said a cafeteria worker in his district keeps four jobs to earn enough money to put food on the family table. One of his district’s best performing teachers, he said, holds perfect attendance but works three jobs to make ends meet. 

The adults who can’t afford to put food on the table raise children who are hungry, don’t perform well in school and repeat the cycle of poverty, Hammitte said. He mentioned a little girl in his district who ran up to him during a Friday afternoon dismissal, hugged his leg and said, “‘Can I go home with you this weekend? Because I know I’m not gonna eat.’” 

Last summer, for the third year in a row, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves opted out of a state-federal partnership that would have given summer food benefits to roughly 320,000 Mississippi children who rely on free meals during the school year. In refusing those dollars, Reeves has called the summer food program “attempts to expand the welfare state.”  

Many Mississippians lack health insurance

His rejection of social safety net programs also extends to healthcare policy, including Medicaid expansion. Mississippi remains one of 10 states not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving tens of thousands of working Mississippians without access to health insurance. 

Healthcare panelists spoke about the steep participation drop in marketplace insurance over the last year. In December 2025, enhanced subsidies expired that made insurance more affordable for more than 22 million Americans. Between February 2025 and February 2026, active enrollment in the plans fell by about 70,000 Mississippians. Panelists warned that will create a greater pressure on charitable organizations compelled to cover those gaps and will lead to sicker patients and higher costs for hospitals and the state. 

Khaylah Scott, program manager for the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, said she often hears people argue that those enhanced subsidies were part of a COVID-era policy.  But she said the policy worked, nearly tripling the number of enrollees, and it shouldn’t be forgotten after the pandemic. 

“When you make healthcare affordable for people, they’ll buy in,” Scott said. “I think that our state is safer and healthier when more people are covered.”