Bobby Jindal, Mary Landrieu spar over Medicaid

WASHINGTON — Gov. Bobby Jindal’s refusal to join other Republican governors in expanding Medicaid eligibility under the 2010 health care reform law is “disheartening,” Sen. Mary Landrieu said Tuesday.

Landrieu, a Democrat, said Jindal, a Republican, “seems to be adamant about putting his political future” ahead of the interests of Louisiana residents.

Jindal has rejected a plan to expand Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor. Under the plan, the federal government would pay 100 percent of the expansion’s costs for the first three years. That share would drop to 90 percent later.

The 2010 health care reform law originally required states to expand eligibility for Medicaid, but the Supreme Court ruled last year, in upholding the law’s constitutionality, that states could opt out of the expansion.

More at http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20130227/NEWS01/130226066/Bobby-Jindal-Mary-Landrieu-spar-over-Medicaid?nclick_check=1 .