January 12, 2006
How Cuts in Vital Services Now Before the House Will Hurt
Louisiana
On February 1, the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to take up legislation
cutting $40 billion in health care, student loans, child support enforcement, help for
parents trying to move from welfare to work, assistance to relatives providing foster care
to abused or neglected children, aid to people with severe disabilities, and other
programs.
The House narrowly approved this legislation (S. 1932), with virtually no opportunity to
review its 774 pages during an all-night session on December 19. Because it has been
slightly changed in the Senate, House members now have an important opportunity to
reject this bill, to protect their constituents from harm. With time to analyze the bill’s full
impact, it is clear that many provisions, a number of them unknown before and even
during the night of the first House vote, will deny assistance to and impose costs on the
people of Louisiana. A vote against these cuts is a vote to protect low-income and
vulnerable children, the elderly, struggling working families, and people with disabilities
in Louisiana.
Less Health Care for Low-Income Residents of Louisiana: Harsher than either the
original House or Senate bills, the bill now back before the House would permit
Louisiana to reduce benefits for nearly all of its 598,000 children who receive Medicaid.
Comprehensive care that now effectively prevents and treats child health problems would
no longer be assured, even for the poorest children. In addition, Louisiana’s 105,000
elderly Medicaid recipients will be at risk of losing eligibility for long-term care services,
because of a punitive provision that would penalize many non-affluent seniors who make
modest gifts to relatives or charity and several years later become ill enough to require
long-term care. The “savings” from restricting eligibility for long-term care is 11 percent
larger in this bill than in the original House legislation.