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BATON ROUGE (AP) — Louisiana’s Medicaid expansion program continues to add more people to the taxpayer-financed health insurance rolls, topping 500,000 enrollees this year and growing at a pace unexpected by Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration.
The Louisiana Department of Health expected a steeper slowdown in enrollment nearly three years after the Democratic governor expanded Medicaid to cover more nonelderly adults, as allowed under the federal health overhaul.
Instead, agency financial officer Pam Diez said the department’s continuing to see sizable numbers of new sign-ups for the program, estimating a 7.5 percent enrollment increase this budget year, followed by a similar increase next year.
The Department of Health website says St. Mary has 6,819 new Medicaid enrollees as of Nov. 5.
The health department is trying to determine what’s driving the ongoing increases.
“We just thought that expansion would be at a much slower growth than this right now,” Diez told a Medicaid forecasting panel. “Early data is showing that the bulk of the increases are coming from the New Orleans area. We’re trying to drill down on that.”
Medicaid expansion is expected to provide insurance to 560,000 people by June 2020, according to health department enrollment estimates provided Thursday to The Associated Press. Diez said at that point, about 89 percent of Louisiana residents eligible for Medicaid expansion would be enrolled in the program.
A new computer upgrade aimed at double-checking more Medicaid recipients’ income to ensure they are eligible for coverage could curb some of the expected growth, Diez told the forecasting panel.
Medicaid expansion began July 1, 2016, with Louisiana becoming the first Deep South state to participate. More than 440,000 working poor and nonelderly adults signed up for the government-financed coverage within the first budget year. Enrollment grew past 500,000 in January.
Edwards, running for a second term in office, has credited the expansion with cutting Louisiana’s uninsured rate in half, to 8.4 percent in the latest Census numbers, lower than the national average. He notes that thousands of people newly added to the Medicaid rolls have received preventive services that have identified cancer, diabetes and other illnesses.
Adults ages 19 to 64 with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level — about $16,750 for a single adult or $28,680 for a family of three — are eligible for the coverage through one of Louisiana’s Medicaid plans administered by private managed-care companies.
Republicans say the expansion is too costly and has grown the Medicaid program at an unsustainable rate. Louisiana is expected to have 1.7 million people, 37 percent of the state’s population, enrolled in Medicaid through the expansion and non-expansion programs by June.
The federal government is paying most of the Medicaid expansion cost. Louisiana is paying a share that eventually increases to 10 percent. Lawmakers passed financing tools to help cover the state’s costs, including a tax hike charged on health maintenance organizations.
GOP lawmakers point to legislative audits that show misspending, including one released in November that said the Medicaid expansion may have spent as much as $85M on ineligible enrollees. The Edwards administration said the computer upgrade will address those concerns, doing more frequent income reviews for eligibility and using more data for comparison, exceeding federal requirements.

Top photo, Brandon Cortez shows off his dance moves Friday during the Night to Shine Prom at Patterson Junior High School. Bottom photo, Misty Adams walks the red carpet during the event. Night to Shine, organized locally by Crossing Place Church in Bayou Vista, is sponsored nationwide by the Tim Tebow Foundation and celebrates people with special needs. About 70 guests got to take a limousine ride, walk the red carpet and dance during the event. (The Daily Review/Zachary Fitzgerald)

The following are the radio dispatch logs from the Morgan City Police Department. To report unlawful or suspicious activity, call the police department at 985-380-4605.

Thursday, Feb. 7

8:34 a.m. 500 block of Roderick Street; Medical.

11:05 a.m. Roderick and Justa streets; Assistance.

11:44 a.m. 200 block of First Street; Medical.

1:38 p.m. 1100 block of Victor II Boulevard; Removal of subject.

2:34 p.m. 1800 block of Victor II Boulevard; Harassment.

3:14 p.m. 900 block of Fourth Street; Harassment.

4:05 p.m. 3100 block of Karen Drive; 911 hang up.

4:44 p.m. 900 block of Marguerite Street; Disturbance.

5:59 p.m. 300 block of Bowman Street; Complaint.

7:37 p.m. 900 block of Willard Street; Complaint.

7:47 p.m. 200 block of Brownell Street; Complaint.

8:01 p.m. 1100 block of Marguerite Street; Complaint.

8:29 p.m. 200 block of Robin Street; Domestic disturbance.

10:04 p.m. 900 block of Willard Street; Disturbance.

Poule d’Eau Kyle will tell you that he was baptized Charles Edwin Kyle, and that his nickname came from his grandfather’s having remarked that Kyle’s infant feet reminded him of those of a poule d’eau (American Coot or water hen).
He will then add, “If you call me Charles or Charles Edwin, I will find out where you live, I will move in, and I will make your life miserable! It’s a talent, you understand,” with a grin.
Kyle speaks with enthusiasm and ease about whatever it is on which he is conjecturing, and he comes off as being sentimentally engaged when genuinely enthused about what he is speaking about.
These days, that engaged sentimentality points toward the revitalization of Franklin, starting with the grounds at Shadowlawn Plantation on Main Street.
Kyle is currently involved with manicuring Shadowlawn’s flower beds and trees, planting camellias, azaleas, weeping cherries, mulberries and yupons and cleaning up the grounds.
He said he got permission from the Shadowlawn Committee to do landscaping, and that anything he does on or to the grounds has to be approved by them. So, he has started with light work.
However, he also remarked that were he to attempt anything which might require the employment of funding past what he has so far mustered through donations, he is sure the plans would have to meet with several tiers of approval from various local and state organizations above and beyond the committee.
Yet, he is not deterred. Kyle’s visions of Franklin’s beautification seem articulated past the stage of merely acquiring permission, at least when one hears him tell them.
He describes butterfly gardens and manicured rows of oaks, wisteria arbors and lily ponds in parks with pathways interweaving them, and spring festivals celebrating azaleas and various other blooms, that if he has his way will be bursting forth all over Main Street and its arteries, all for the sake of beauty and the tourist’s dollar.
“How do we stop Franklin from dying further?” Kyle asked. “All we have to go on is our history. I don’t know if (plans for) Shadowlawn will work, but I’ve got to try something.
“This is what has come to my mind: Let’s clean up Shadowlawn, let’s put all of these things in there, let’s put a gate around the property, and at the back of the property we can have a little black box for the swiping of credit cards. Do you want to go to the butterfly garden? Do you want to go to the bayou? Anything developed there… two dollars to get in.”
This is how Kyle speaks of his dreams for Shadowlawn; and further, Franklin. He dreams out loud and it sounds great. It sounds like the hopeful poetry of enterprise yet manifest… and he keeps speaking.
“Another one is 3211 (Northwest Boulevard),” he said. “What is there to draw you from Highway 90—zero! Why are we not landscaped?
“People know about our houses and they know about how beautiful this little town is but there is nothing, eye-wise, to pull them off of that four-lane highway to come see us. Simple landscaping along 3211 and—bam! We’ve now made our entrance look very, very nice.”
He further envisions a parish bird sanctuary at the Atchafalaya Basin complete with “huge decks that go out over the swamp.”
He said he believes that these kinds of natural draws are the things that people might come to St. Mary Parish to see.
As for how he recommends funding his prospective projects—for now Kyle is doing it by “Peter sharing with Paul,” as he put it. He is procuring donations in the form of memorials, which is how the new camellias got planted at Shadowlawn.
Of course, it would be unrealistic to imagine one could botanize the entirety of Franklin’s Main Street, as well as the other beautifications Kyle has in mind, through donations alone. The city would be one big memorial plaque. But, Kyle knows that, too.
Donations are only how he is beginning his enterprises, and as they proceed toward fruition, each in their own right, the funding may become more available than if requested through a mere presentation at a council meeting.
In any event, Shadowlawn is currently ground zero for Kyle’s landscaping and beautification dreams for Franklin, and he has already seen some success there, with more to come according to him.
Ideas are the beginnings of acts, and acts are the beginnings of accomplishments.
And Poule d’Eau Kyle is not short on ideas. That is for certain.