According to the budget passed by the House of Representatives, Louisiana Government will send eviction notices to more than 30,000 nursing homes. This policy will affect many middle-class families as they will not be able to avail Medicaid after the notice. While giving an interview, the spokesman of Health Department Bob Johannessen said that the Louisiana Department of Health will soon send the notices to the enrollees about their ineligibility to use Medicaid. He further said that the government is trying to give notices to the affected people as soon as possible so that they can manage their healthcare problem.
It is expected that the notices would be sent by the Government on Thursday and a press conference is expected to take place on Wednesday by John Bel Edwards. And more details would be provided in that press conference. During a meeting on Monday, executive director of the Louisiana Nursing Home Association Mark Berger said he was informed by the Health Department that they will send the letters by 10 May.
Medicaid is one of the greatest health insurance programs in the United States and almost 70 million people benefit from this program. Every 1 in 5 American is using Medicaid in the US. In his reign, Obama allowed expanding this program to millions of low-income adults. Since Trump took charge, his aim was to roll back the expansion made by Obama. The GOP has asked states to reshape the Medicaid programs and asked to put work requirements in practice.
Many senators criticized this letter as Sen. Regina Barrow called it a mass chaos. D-Baton Rouge called this letter troublesome. While commenting on this matter, Sen. Greg Tarver said that the people in Louisiana are strange as they are putting those out who are building Louisiana. D-Shreveport labeled this eviction horrible. This eviction would take place from 1 July when the budget will come into practice. Many healthcare cuts were applied in the budget to cope with the deficit of $550 million. The budget was prepared by the House and then sent to the Senate for approval.
Hundreds of employees of Lafayette General were left stunned after the hospital management announced to close the hospital due to upcoming budget. It is also expected the other hospital will follow the Lafayette General Hospital. Edwards insisted Lawmakers to mitigate these health care cuts and increase the tax to compensate the deficit but later the lawmakers declined to increase taxes. Chief executive of Holy Angels Laurie Boswell also spoke against this letter saying that there is no place for such people to go. This makes us look heartless, said Senate Finance Chair Eric LaFleur. Sen. Jim Fannin, R-Jonesboro said that it a political maneuver and the government should have delayed it.
This notification will put the families of nursing homes under immense pressure, said Berger. He explained that if this letter came into practice, then all the nursing homes would be closed. The healthcare cutting will cause 25,000 people lose their jobs. While talking to the media, Sen. Bodi White said that sending a notification to the nursing homes is a premature act.
He further said that he couldn’t understand how this notification would do any good to these old folks. Sen. Sharon Hewitt heavily criticized this act of Health department as he said that the Health Department should make money by identifying frauds rather than kicking people out of the nursing homes.
However, the governor wants to start the special session early in order to try again and also want to end the current regular session early. One thing was made clear during the regular session that Taxes won’t be considered in this session. R-Westwego, House Speaker Taylor Barras, and Senate President John Alario all agreed to end the current regular session and start the special session immediately. But all of them didn’t commit fully to this decision. The attitude of senators made the Governor furious and he said that fixing this budget is the most important thing to do for all of them and it can’t be done in this regular session.