Thank God Bobby knows how to spend our tax dollars.

It should indicate to you that there are two sides to this issue. There is a reason that most states are participating in this. States that don't have a governor who wants to be the Republican candidate for President. It's not just "liberal" think tanks, the Legislative Fiscal Office says that there is over $500 million to be saved by implementing ACA and Medicaid standards.

http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=840546&n=Fiscal Note - HB233 Original​

Jindal's own Dept. of Health and Hospitals says that there is over $350 million in savings to be had.

http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/assets/medicaid/docs/MdcdExpntnImpct_Mrch13.pdf​

The fact that Jindal decided not to accept the optional expansion has left about 242,000 low-income state residents in limbo. These are the people who fall into an insurance gap. They make too much money to qualify for traditional Medicaid and too little to qualify for insurance premium subsidies under the the health-care law. Yet we leave federal money to fix this on the table.

That leaves many of them using hospital emergency rooms for health care — the most expensive type of care by far. And the rest must use the state Charity Hospital system, Louisiana being the only state that maintains this socialized medicine system at great cost. None of your studies count the money Louisiana stands to save if we no longer had to build, maintain, staff, and run these gulag charity hospitals. But if Louisianans are covered under ACA approved insurance or Medicaid, then we no longer need Charity Hospitals.

Worse, Jindal is trying to privatize the Charity Hospital System. That simply maintains the socialized medicine system but adds corporate profit to it at the expense of Louisiana taxpayers. If all Louisiana citizens were covered under ACA insurance or Medicaid, then $millions would flow to existing private doctors and hospitals through the free market. Market competition would keep rates reasonable. More expansion of Louisiana facilities and hiring of personnel through a free market economy instead of a state government subsidy "charity" program that nobody else in America uses.

 

The federal money gives us time to phase out the charity hospital system altogether for a huge savings you don't seem to recognize.

I supported my point with documents. You have proven nothing.​

 

What use do we have for a charity hospital system if everyone is covered by insurance or Medicaid? ZERO. Not even Jindal could justify its further existence. It's a WASTE . . . OF . . . MONEY.

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You are too lazy to make your own argument. Not my problem. I am debating this with you, not a document.

 

I'm saying that the charity hospital system is an expensive unnecessary relict of Huey Long socialism. If all citizens have insurance or medicaid as they would under ACA standard, the charity hospitals are not needed and are a waste of money. No other state has them. None.

Jindal is refusing the Medicaid funds but not eliminating the Charity Hospital system. He's trying to privatize it instead to provide corporate profits for whoever gets the contract to run the charity hospitals. It gives Jindal patronage possibilities at a cost to taxpayers. Of course he doesn't care about the poor sick people. It's about political patronage.