Louisiana hospitals pay to speed up Medicaid expansion

In a red state where lawmakers are decidedly hostile to the Affordable Care Act, Louisiana's non-profit hospitals chipped in to hire workers to oversee enrollment as a part of its recent move toward expansion of Medicaid eligibility.

According to the Non-Profit Quarterly, the Pelican State's hospitals are defraying the costs of hiring more than 200 Medicaid eligibility workers, overriding any attempts by Republican lawmakers to slow the enrollment efforts and therefore an improved flow of insured patients into their doors.

The Medicaid expansion was ordered by Gov. John Bel Edwards in January, not long after he took office. Edwards is the only Democratic governor in the south, and Louisiana is the only state that has expanded Medicaid under the auspices of the ACA. It allowed immediate enrollment of about 300,000 state residents, although another 100,000 or so would have to go through a formal enrollment process that would be carried out by the newly hired workers.

But so far, the GOP-controlled Legislature has not approved funding for additional Medicaid enrollment workers, raising concerns that there would be a backlog of would-be Medicaid enrollees waiting to get into the program.

“People should have a reasonable time getting in and speaking to someone about eligibility. [We made sure there was no] stain to the program that would paint us as inept or incompetent,” Ruth Kennedy, who oversees Medicaid enrollment at the Louisiana Department of Health, told the Non-Profit Quarterly.

The state's safety net is already beset with fiscal issues. Despite recently privatizing many hospitals previously operated by the state in order to save money, Edwards said earlier this year that some facilities could wind up closing their doors.

- read the Non-Profit Quarterly article

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