One of the nation's poorest, least-insured and unhealthiest states launched a major effort last week to expand Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of low-income residents. Hospitals and other healthcare providers there say it can't happen soon enough.
Surprisingly, Louisiana's Republican-controlled Legislature is largely going along, in part because the large infusion of federal Medicaid money will help ease the state's dire budget problems. But the expansion still doesn't solve the problem of a big budget shortfall that's threatening the survival of some of the state's nine formerly public safety net hospitals, an issue that may take lawmakers into a special legislative session this month.
The administration of Louisiana's new governor, Democrat John Bel Edwards, kicked off a big enrollment push to sign up a hoped-for 375,000 people, many of them low-wage workers and their family members. The effort will be helped by the Obama administration's unprecedented approval last week for the state to use information collected from food stamp recipients to automatically determine whether they also qualify for Medicaid.
The state's hospitals, particularly its financially struggling safety net hospitals, are welcoming the Medicaid expansion, which will take effect July 1. “We've heard nothing but positives from the hospitals and providers on what the Medicaid expansion can do for funding of the hospitals,” said state Sen. Norby Chabert, a Republican with close ties to the Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center, a safety net hospital in Houma named after his late father.
Louisiana is the 31st state to extend Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level.
