Vote set on plan for care of poor

• By MARK BALLARD
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Dec 14, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposed revamp of the way government provides medical services for about a quarter of the state’s population should receive its first up or down vote by state legislators this week.

Louisiana House and Senate members of the Health and Welfare committees are scheduled to meet jointly on Thursday morning. They plan to vote on whether to allow Jindal to apply for a waiver from existing federal regulations in order to change the state’s $7 billion Medicaid program for the poor, elderly and disabled.

On Friday, the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget will be asked to allow Jindal to apply for the waiver. Jindal is seeking approval from the federal government to allow Louisiana to service the state’s roughly 1 million Medicaid patients through private “managed care networks.”

“This is just the first step,” said state Rep. Kay Katz, R-Monroe, who chairs the House Health and Welfare Committee. “We’re giving them permission to take this to Washington. … After they negotiate the details up there, they have to come back to us for final approvals.”

As Louisiana legislators prepare for the upcoming votes, organizations from across the nation are weighing for and against Jindal’s idea.

For instance, James C. Capretta, a former official in the Bush White House, wrote on Dec. 9 in The National Review that the coming fight in Louisiana is tied to the Republicans’ hope to survive the years that Barack Obama is president. “If nothing else, that should be reason enough for the Bush administration to move with haste and let Jindal get to work,” Capretta wrote.

On the other side is a study by researchers with prestigious Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., raising questions about Florida’s experience with a similar plan.

“You’re going to see all kinds of stuff thrown around and that’s typical. But it’s because there’s a vote coming up,” said Alan Levine, secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals.

As Jindal’s point man on the revamp, Levine can quote as many studies supporting the governor’s concept as opponents have condemning it.

Levine said he wants the debate to transcend political rhetoric and stick to health-care issues.

So does state Rep. Michael Jackson, No Party-Baton Rouge. But that is not likely,  given the number of well-financed interests that profit from a system providing services to people with little money and less influence, he said.

Plus, health care, which accounts for one-seventh of the American economy, is part of a national debate with solutions that Democrats and Republicans do not share.

“It is going to be a huge political issue,” said Jackson, a member of the House health committee. “What the national government does is going to be very, very important to what eventually happens here.”