Tagged: health care

A New Orleans congressman is asking Gov. Bobby Jindal to reconsider his position against expanding Louisiana's Medicaid program, as allowed under the federal health care overhaul.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond sent the Republican governor a letter Monday saying as many as 400,000 Louisiana residents would be eligible to get insurance under the Medicaid expansion.

Richmond says low-income families wouldn't have a viable plan for getting coverage without the expansion, which covers adults up to 133 percent of the poverty level.

Gov. Bobby Jindal says he's confident LSU's network of public hospitals and clinics will protect health care services, despite cuts that strip a quarter of the system's funding.

Lawmakers have said they don't understand how the university-run health care system can shrink its budget by $329 million this year without shutting facilities that take care of the poor and uninsured.

But Jindal on Tuesday told reporters that "LSU is well on their way to presenting a plan that's going to protect critical services."

Louisiana lawmakers are bristling about getting few details and no ability to decide the $523 million in budget cuts Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration has made to health care programs.

Several complained the governor's staff wasn't explaining the gravity of the slashing and the implications on the LSU network of public hospitals and clinics that care for the poor and uninsured.

The cuts are tied to a drop in Louisiana's federal Medicaid funding that was passed in congressional legislation after the state's 2012-13 budget was already crafted.

Almost 60 years since it opened, the Southeast Louisiana Hospital — a psychiatric facility that gained national notoriety in 1959 when then-Gov. Earl Long was briefly committed there — is preparing to close down its daily operations.

The Times-Picayune reports that the hospital's closing is part of an $859 million cut to the state's federal Medicaid program.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals hopes to send all 176 beds occupied at the hospital to other public and private hospitals in the state.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana has been chosen by Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration to take over the job of managing a state employee health care plan.

The company was the lowest bidder, The Advocate reports offering to do the work cheaper than Humana and United Healthcare, beginning Jan. 31.