The Pelican Institute’s Senior Fellow Chris Jacobs authored a column featured in the Wall Street Journal highlighting the misconceptions behind the “success” of Louisiana’s Medicaid expansion program.  While some leaders tout the expansion as a win for Louisiana, the facts show that it continues to cost Louisiana’s hard-working taxpayers jobs and opportunity. Jacobs says: “If...

It’s no secret to the people of Louisiana that things aren’t going well. The state has a shrinking labor force, an antiquated budget system, a struggling education system and a backlog of infrastructure projects that are in need of addressing. Given these issues, it’s no surprise that there is a sizable population that is leaving...

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.

Because Bob Mann holds the Manship Chair in Journalism and is the director of the Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs at Louisiana State University, and his accusations center around the issue of racism, I feel compelled to respond to his claims.

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.

'Government-financed health care does not have to be government-run.'

Republicans did not do enough to advance free market reforms within the health care system when they last controlled both houses of Congress, some of the medical doctors who now serve in the House have said. Rep. Fleming and Rep. Cassidy are both calling for reforms built around "price transparency."

Gov. Jindal estimates that transitioning towards coordinated-care will save the state $135 million annually. It would also lead to improved health care quality.