Supporters of Medicaid expansion would argue that it is wholly appropriate that Leah Hendrix has recently been a featured speaker in rallies at the state Capitol in favor of providing health care coverage for primarily working poor Mississippians.
No doubt, her activism brings symmetry.
Hendrix, a Jackson mother of four and the wife of a physician, is the granddaughter of Alton Cobb, the state’s former longtime state health officer who played a pivotal role in Mississippi opting into the original Medicaid program 55 years ago.
In more recent times, her father, Tim Alford, a Kosciusko physician, was beating the drums in favor of Medicaid expansion longer than almost any other Mississippi health care provider.
“He said he was leaving that to me because no one had listened to him,” she joked in an interview with Mississippi Today this week after one of the Capitol rallies.
Medicaid expansion has become the major focus of a contentious 2024 legislative session, with hundreds of Mississippians, top state business leaders, health officials and even religious leaders publicly advocating at the Capitol for full Medicaid expansion that stands to significantly help the poorest, unhealthiest state in the nation.