EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

Sept. 26 The Advocate (La.)

Losing health coverage

Because of John Bel Edwards’ first decision as governor, since 2016 Louisiana’s people have lived longer and better lives.

His expansion of Medicaid insurance coverage for the working poor — still with stiff income limits but with broader eligibility than before — was an important step forward.

But health care in America, including Louisiana, is significantly more expensive than in other industrial countries. …

Under the pressures of shutdowns, it made sense to freeze the Medicaid program. Don’t drop anybody off the rolls, when medical care is good for the larger community and ascertaining income limits would be difficult in a chaotic situation.

Now, income limits are back. More than 100,000 Louisiana residents lost their Medicaid coverage early in the process, although the Department of Health hopes that many can eventually be reinstated.

The reason they got dropped? Paperwork and communication snafus, often, not financial ineligibility.

Those hiccups are inevitable in a large organization and are hardly limited to the public sector. But they’re particularly burdensome with the Medicaid expansion population, many of whom were among the worst hurt in Louisiana — workers in hospitality, for example, where vast layoffs occurred suddenly and through no fault of their own. …

While Medicaid expansion in general has been a politically fraught process — the Republican administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal rejected it, Democrat Edwards embraced it — our recent governors of both parties have been strongly in favor of the separate Medicaid program for children, who need regular doctor visits.

It’s one of the steps toward a healthier life that ought to be encouraged. The costs for the young in a state with high poverty rates can lead to higher costs for health care down the road. No major candidate for governor wants to repeal it, either.

Still, a reversal of progress was caused by the end of other federal programs for poorer families enacted temporarily during the pandemic period. The rising cost of living hurts too; the poverty threshold, based on the cost of essential items like food and housing, rose sharply: A family of four living in a rental home was considered poor under the supplemental measure if the family’s income was less than $34,518 in 2022, up from $31,453 in 2021.

Many families in Louisiana live on less. We are encouraged that health officials are trying, within the limits of the regs, to encourage people who have been dropped from Medicaid to reapply if their situations have not really changed.

But it’s going to be a long process, and for at least a while, some folks are going to be worse off despite the benefits of Edwards’ 2016 decision.