Perhaps more than any other state, the expansion of Medicaid to give thousands of Louisiana residents no-cost health insurance stands to have a profound impact on health care — whether it’s better or worse than the system that was already established to take care of the needs of the poor.Louisiana on Friday is set to become the 31st state in the country to expand Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act. About 375,000 people — mostly the working poor — are expected to get free health insurance coverage through the new program, which is mostly subsidized by the federal government.But the transition to having so many more people on Medicaid, rather than relying on Louisiana’s unique “charity” hospital system when they can’t afford health care, is expected to be bumpy — to put it lightly.
“There’s going to be a journey we have of people learning what it actually …
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Why medicaid expansion in Louisiana to impact charity hospitals' public-private deals