Every Democrat hack in Louisiana is pushing for expanding Medicaid. The Times-Picayune had an article yesterday promoting the idea.

The Democrats are trying to sell it as this pot of money from the Federal government that would solve all of Louisiana’s healthcare woes. But there is no such thing is free money. After a certain period of time, Louisiana will having to pay an increasing share of the cost of the Medicaid expansion. Plus there is no guarantee that the Federal government won’t cut off the money.

There’s a report that was released yesterday from the Foundation for Government Accountability that reveals that Medicaid expansion would likely be more of a financial loser for Louisiana than projected. The report found that in the states that expanded Medicaid, they underestimated the number of people who would sign up.

One of the key components of ObamaCare is Medicaid expansion, which allows states to add able-bodied, working age adults who earn less than 138% of federal poverty level to the Medicaid rolls – with the financial support of taxpayers. And in states where legislators are considering expansion state taxpayers are often told not to worry about the costs and projections under expansion because the feds have it all taken care of. But what if cost projections and enrollment exceeds estimates? Taxpayers beware.

A new report out this week from The Foundation for Government Accountability details just how inaccurate original Medicaid enrollment projections were and how expensive expansion may become.

Each state estimated the number of its citizens who would sign up for Medicaid expansion before they began enrollment. They sold the program as cheaper than you would expect because of the low projected enrollment numbers. It turns out many states were wrong. In fact, 16 of the 17 states that had data available are over original projections.

Who suffers because of the increase of able-bodied people on Medicare? It’s those who are truly needy such as seniors, people with disabilities, and children; ie. the people the Democrat Party claims to care about.

As the report notes, with this enrollment explosion, “states that adopted the expansion will soon need to find additional funds to pay for the inevitable cost overruns.” A larger burden of the Medicaid expansion costs will be shouldered by states in 2017. If Washington holds up their end of the bargain that long.

Unfortunately, because of “ObamaCare’s perverse funding scheme,” it “encourages state budgeters to steal resources from seniors, children, pregnant women, and individuals with disabilities in order to free up funding for Medicaid expansion.”

The report from FGA can be found here.

When John Bel Edwards, Karen Carter Peterson, and the rest of the Democrat Party sells Medicaid expansion as the cure for Louisiana’s fiscal and healthcare woes; remember that they’re just taking healthcare away from those who are truly needy to give it to the able-bodied. It is also a future tax increase for Louisianians and a bigger budget mess down the road.