Why expanding Louisiana’s program to able-bodied adults hurts the economy By Chris Jacobs, Senior Fellow Louisiana’s Medicaid expansion helped far too few people obtain good, affordable health coverage and actually cost Louisiana desperately needed jobs. But a taxpayer-funded report released by the Louisiana Department of Health on April 10 claims that the state’s Medicaid expansion...

As the Louisiana legislature ponders ways to resolve the state’s “fiscal cliff,” policy-makers should remember the massive costs associated with the state’s embrace of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Enrollment in this expansion to the able bodied (i.e., working-age adults without dependent children) has exploded, raising Medicaid expenses. Moreover, the expansion discourages work, and disadvantages the most...

Everyone knows that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or “Obamacare,” has not worked out as originally planned. State officials, however, still face considerable pressure to accept Medicaid expansion. Louisiana’s leaders must continue to resist the plan and come up with an alternative.

Not only does Medicaid place an unreasonable burden on taxpayers, it fails to deliver a significant health benefit to the poor.

Louisiana legislators may not have the power to fix what is wrong with the federal welfare state. But they can refuse to expand it in their own backyards.