Lawmakers face an onslaught of decisions every day at the capitol: vote up or down, pass this amendment, defer that bill... A few key players in this week's Medicaid expansion debate explain why they voted the way they did.
Rep. Kenny Havard, District 62, St. Francisville
AGAINST
“I certainly do not know what’s in the Affordable Care Act. The situation we’re in here, is that they’re asking us to accept this as the law of the land in Louisiana and know on knows or can tell us what’s in it, from the President on down.”
Rep. Regina Barrow, District 29, Baton Rouge
FOR
“I’ve been in this process almost from day one, I’ve been watching it, I’ve been participating in it, I’ve been to DC several times, when the Supreme Court was taking it up, deciding if it was constitutional or not, I was in DC then. ... The cost for three years is covered at 100 percent. To me it’s a no brainer. With the option at any time to opt out.”
Rep. Lance Harris, District 25, Alexandria
AGAINST
“I looked at a lot of different articles; I had some searches on Google to make sure they alerted me to anything that came across, and put those facts together and was able to determine I was right in my deliberations. There are too many questions. It could end up costing the Louisiana taxpayer a lot of money. ... It was very easy for me to not support the expansion of Medicaid. Number one: there was a big question mark, a big if as to what’s going to happen. After all, it hasn’t been fully implemented. The full ramifications of that bill will probably not be known until the end of 2014.”
Representatives decided to kill one bill that would have led to the approval of part of the Affordable Care Act package -- Medicaid expansion. More bills to do so are up next week.