With Bel Edwards win, Louisiana set to expand Medicaid

A quiet legislative maneuver from last Spring combined with an unexpected triumph of Democrat John Bel Edwards in the governor's race makes it nearly certain the Louisiana will become the 31st state -- and second in the former confederacy --  to expand Medicaid.

On Saturday, Edwards, who strongly favors expansion, easily defeated sitting U.S Sen. David Vitter in Louisiana's gubernatorial run-off election (after throwing this haymaker on the airwaves). Edwards' replacement of Bobby Jindal in itself removes a massive obstacle to the Medicaid expansion, as Jindal is an implacable (and inexplicable) foe of covering 242,000 uninsured Louisianans.

However, the state legislative majorities remain firmly in GOP hands in Louisiana. This phenomenon has stalled governors who have wanted to accept the expansion: just ask Jay Nixon in Missouri, Terry McAuliffe in Virginia and (until recently) Steve Bullock in Montana.

But the good news is that the legislature in Louisiana already has acted. Well, sort of. The legislature has rejected multiple bills expanding Medicaid in 2013, 2014 and 2015. However, in 2015 both houses passed a joint resolution laying out circumstances under which the state can expand Medicaid. The resolution creates a mechanism under which -- if a new governor assents -- the department of health and hospitals will set a fee on hospital systems to fund any state portion of the Medicaid expansion. Hospitals will likely be fine with this, as the bill exempts the smallest providers and in any case accepting federal Medicaid dollars will pump a much greater amount of funding back into the system.

In short, the legislature isn't exactly pushing for an expansion, but it is devolving its power to set up a mechanism under which a governor can chose to take it. That's exactly the opposite of what Texas did in 2013, when it took away the governor's power to accept the expansion in order to make it less likely that the state would take it.

So in any case, at least we're stumbling forward toward doing the right thing -- after we've tried everything else, of course, but I'll take it.  

Finally, note that this happening is further evidence of two important points.

First, Republican resistance to the Obamacare remains strong and widespread, but continues to slowly erode at the state level.

Second, quite simply is that elections still matter. Each of the four major contenders in the Louisiana gubernatorial race, including the three Republicans, expressed openness to expanding Medicaid. However, Edwards was the most consistent and strident supporter of expansion and is the least likely to impose conditions on expansion that would hurt recipients.