Department News

The Louisiana Department of Health reports that cases of mumps are beginning to appear in Louisiana. As of Wednesday, there have been 12 cases* of mumps reported by the LDH Office of Public Health.

The Louisiana Department of Health will host a series of town hall meetings with clinical providers from across the state to solicit input on the selection of Medicaid performance quality measures.

The rate of babies born with syphilis is rising in Louisiana, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC found the rate of congenital syphilis rose by 6% nationwide between 2014 and 2015. Director of the Bureau of Infectious Diseases for the Office of Public Health, Dr. DeAnn Gruber, says the problem is even worse in Louisiana.

Well-Ahead Louisiana, an initiative of the Louisiana Department of Health, the Louisiana Restaurant Association and Oschner’s Eat Fit program have partnered together to provide healthy dining options in restaurants across the state.

Numerous studies show that access to mental health, substance use and other health care services helps former offenders better integrate back into their communities, lessening the likelihood of these individuals committing future crimes. Now, because of Medicaid expansion, the Louisiana Department of Health and the Department of Corrections are helping incarcerated individuals enroll into Medicaid, with coverage beginning once the individual’s sentence is complete and they transition out of prison.

Medicaid Expansion enrollment in Louisiana reaches 400,635 new members enrolled, and the most recent Gallup report shows the uninsured rate in Louisiana has decreased by nearly half to 12.5 percent in 2016, down from 21.7 percent in 2013. Gallop cites expansion as the key contributor for the reduction in the uninsured rate.

If the goal of health policy is to keep people healthier, there is a lot of room for debate over how to go about that process. If the measurement is insurance coverage, so that medical care is more easily available and affordable, "Obamacare" is a big success.

Medicaid expansion is covering hundreds of thousands more working adults and ensuring they have access to primary care. In addition, Medicaid Expansion is bringing in more federal tax dollars to our state and saving Louisiana taxpayers $184 million.

At the national level, where there is a move to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and in Louisiana where some officials want to end Medicaid expansion, there are critics who use the argument that Medicaid patients get worse care than those without coverage.

For all the debate about whether states should expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, it’s unclear whether doing so actually makes people healthier. Initial research into the impact of expansion is at the same time exhaustive and scarce, as well as seemingly contradictory in some cases.