Healthy Louisiana

The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), Health Plan Management Section invites qualified Proposers to submit proposals to provide comprehensive enrollment broker and beneficiary support services, including but not limited to choice counseling, enrollment, disenrollment and transfer capabilities, and a customer service unit, in accordance with the specifications and conditions set forth herein.

WASHINGTON - Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Rebekah Gee and Gov. John Bel Edwards' general counsel Matthew Block met with federal officials in Washington D.C. Friday (Jan. 26) to discuss work requirements for Medicaid recipients in Louisiana.

The Department of Health submits a detailed monthly report to the Legislature that provides a comprehensive overview of Medicaid spending. The reports include projections for future revenues and expenditures for the given state fiscal year.

As of June 26, 2017, more than 433,000 Louisiana residents who lacked coverage for essential health care services a year ago, now have coverage because of Medicaid expansion. More important than having coverage is using the coverage to visit a primary care doctor for an annual check-up, having prescription coverage and being covered for wellness visits and screenings.

If Medicaid expansion ends, the uninsured will go back to hospital emergency rooms for their health care. Cassidy said that means society pays the rest of the bill for the uninsured because the hospitals will shift the remaining costs to the privately insured who end up paying higher health care premiums.

Today, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced that the Trump Administration’s Office of Inspector General Department of Health and Human Services audit has found that Louisiana’s Medicaid program has complied with the federal fraud reporting requirements, has the proper procedures in place to report fraud and is not in need of any recommendations for improvement. Louisiana is one of only four states to pass this audit since 2014.

Some Louisiana residents who are employed but currently receive their health care coverage under Medicaid may now be eligible for a program that will allow them to afford coverage from their employer.

Perhaps it sounds a little odd, but people both in Louisiana and elsewhere are sometimes fuzzy about the differences between the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act, expanded Medicaid, and “Obamacare” — the politically charged term that involves the whole of the parts.

About three fourths of residents (72 percent) approve of expansion. Approval of the move extends across a number of demographic and political groups. Democrats (91 percent) and independents (73 percent) approve of Medicaid expansion. While Republicans are less enthusiastic about the policy, they lean toward approval (51 percent approval versus 45 percent disapproval).

More than 405,000 Louisiana residents who were uninsured a year ago now have coverage because of the Medicaid expansion offered under the Affordable Care Act. That is even more than the state predicted would sign up.