It seems pretty clear that Jindal's refusal to expand Medicaid is a craven political calculation designed to burnish his conservative, anti-Obamacare cred for a possible 2016 run at the White House.
Gov. Bobby Jindal
On the heels of a Kaiser Family Foundation study finding that nearly a quarter million Louisiana residents - poor and working poor - will fall through the crack between the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges and health coverage through Medicaid, the editors at the Times-Picayune frame Gov. Bobby Jindal's refusal to expand Medicaid in Louisiana in both moral and economic terms.
It seems pretty clear that Jindal's refusal to expand Medicaid - Uncle Sam picks up the tab for 100 percent of the expansion for the first three years and 90 percent thereafter - is a craven political calculation designed to burnish his conservative, anti-Obamacare cred for a possible 2016 run at the White House.
Unfortunately, about 242,000 low-income Louisiana residents will pay the price for Jindal's stubbornness:
That is a hard-hearted position. And it is one that other conservative governors have not been able to stick with. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett - all Republicans who've opposed the Affordable Care Act - agreed recently to take the Medicaid money. The reason is simple: It's good for the people they serve. Gov. Jindal ought to add his name to that list.
Read the editorial here.