Health care providers and patients who rely on Louisiana's Medicaid program are expected to learn Friday how the Jindal administration plans to slash $859 million in the program that takes care of the poor, elderly and disabled.
The cuts are tied to a congressional reduction in Louisiana's federal Medicaid financing rate.
The reductions will strip 11 percent of the funding from the $7.7 billion Medicaid budget that lawmakers passed for the fiscal year that began July 1.
When the congressional reduction was being negotiated, Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein outlined possible cuts that would sharply reduce funding to the LSU-run public hospitals and rural hospitals, eliminate a breast and cervical cancer treatment program and slice the rates paid to nursing homes, doctors and other providers.