ON THE HOME FRONT IN LOUISIANA

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration quietly released a new financial analysis that estimates the state could save as much as $368 million over 10 years by expanding Louisiana’s Medicaid program under the federal health care law.

The analysis was posted on the state Department of Health and Hospitals’ website this week with no fanfare. The department hasn’t touted the findings, and they were mentioned only briefly — and with little detail — during a budget hearing in which lawmakers pushed for more information about the expansion and Jindal’s refusal to participate in it.
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The new DHH estimates say Louisiana could save anywhere from $197 million to $368 million over 10 years while covering more than 577,000 additional people through Medicaid. The savings can be attributed to lessening existing state costs for providing health care to the uninsured, largely through the public hospital system.

Oops!  Note the quiet correction.  Let's not blow up this teensy-weensy mistake way out of proportion.  Now the only barrier to implementing the Medicaid expansion is the governor's ideology.

Jindal opposes the expansion as inappropriate growth of what he says is an inefficient government entitlement program.

And I'm sure the people in Louisiana who are denied health insurance coverage will understand perfectly that Jindal cannot violate his principles.  He and his family are comfortably covered, but the rest of the citizens in Louisiana, especially the families struggling on low wages, are not entitled to health insurance coverage from "an inefficient government entitlement program".   Damn those entitlements!

And about the governor's proposed tax plan to eliminate income taxes for individuals and businesses and replace the revenue with a sales tax, which will give Louisiana the highest sales taxes in the country:

The state’s largest business lobbying group warned Gov. Bobby Jindal on Wednesday that his tax proposal is unacceptable to the business community.

Dan Juneau, president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, blamed problems with the plan on the Jindal administration drawing up the proposal in a very short period of time, resulting in a simple shift in tax burden.

“There’s got to be winners and there’s got to be losers,” Juneau said. “The business community has become the designated loser.”

Oops again!  I welcome any and all allies to stop the stinking pile of compost aka known as Jindal's tax plan or anything like it from making its way into law.  Those who have the means and live within a reasonable distance of a bordering state will leave Louisiana to shop for goods and services.  Those who do not have transportation will suffer.  Of course, the governor says the poor will be exempt from sales taxes, but, as the demand for exemptions pile up, the math will not work, if it ever did.  (See above on the costs of the Medicaid expansion.)  The Jindal administration is not known for superior math skills.