Louisiana is one the states rejecting Medicaid expansion, and Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal says that's because it actually robs more people of private insurance than it helps.
Appearing Sunday on
"Meet the Press," Jindal said Medicaid was designed to take care of disabled and children, and does a good job of that. "It was never designed to be there for able-bodied adults."
President Barack Obama is "doubling down on a failed approach" by expanding entitlements when the government can't afford the ones already in place, Jindal said.
"This is not free money," the governor insisted. "Every dollar we don't spend on Medicaid is another dollar we don't have to borrow from China." Louisiana taxpayers are federal taxpayers, he said, and he wants to be part of the effort to stop wasting federal tax dollars.
The best plan is to decrease the cost of healthcare, he said, adding that for every uninsured person Louisiana would have covered under an expanded Medicaid program, more than one person would have lost his or her private insurance.
Obamacare "chooses a top-down closed approach where the government is running your healthcare," he said.
Jindal cited a recent
study in Oregon that showed Medicaid does not improve healthcare.
"Simply giving people a card without giving them access to healthcare, to doctors, to hospitals, doesn't improve anything," he said.
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