Gov. Jeff Landry has called the Louisiana Legislature into a special session that will begin on Oct. 23 and must wrap up by Nov. 13. The governor has backtracked from his original goal to redraw the boundaries for the state’s congressional districts and is now focused on adjusting next year’s election schedule. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Tyler Bridges reports there’s a lack of clarity surrounding Landry’s objectives:
“We’re waiting for legislation from the governor’s office since he issued the call,” said Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie. “He hasn’t articulated yet which dates and what changes he wants. Once we have that, then we can begin the bill drafting for the session.” Landry’s call, which establishes what issues legislators can consider in the session, contains a single item: “to legislate relative to the election code, election dates, election deadlines, and election plans for the 2026 election cycle, and to provide for the funding thereof, if necessary.”
Louisiana is at the epicenter of a legal battle that could neuter the federal Voting Rights Act and allow state legislatures to eliminate Black-majority districts. Landry wants to push back the state’s elections until after a Supreme Court ruling, which could come later this year. Simply moving back the state’s election schedule isn’t an easy task:
But Secretary of State Nancy Landry has advised lawmakers that federal and state laws limit the possible future dates for candidate qualifying and the elections. She has made preliminary estimates of key dates depending on when her office receives a new map approved by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor. … Nancy Landry emphasized that her office is short-staffed now because of a decision by Murrill to cancel her outside attorneys, so she said it’s possible that further research could change those dates somewhat.
Louisiana’s low Medicare performance
Louisiana ranked last among all states and the District of Columbia on how well Medicare serves residents, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund. While Medicare is a federal program, factors such as affordability, access and health outcomes vary widely by states. Stateline’s Anna Claire Vollers explains:
Researchers scored states based on 31 indicators, including demographic data like age and income, as well as factors including having a usual care provider, preventable hospital stays, and the share of beneficiaries with potentially dangerous medication prescriptions. … States at the bottom of the rankings, such as Louisiana and Mississippi, have a much higher share of people who were uninsured or underinsured before they enrolled in Medicare.
David Radley, one of the report’s co-authors, told WRKF-FM’s Drew Hawkins that the low performance of Deep South states is closely linked to poverty:
“In all three of those states — Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana — all of them have a higher than average percent of beneficiaries that qualify for low-income subsidies.” He noted that nearly 28% of Medicare beneficiaries in Louisiana and Mississippi receive such subsidies, compared to 20% nationally — a clear sign of economic vulnerability that can affect access to care.
Louisiana’s history of mass incarceration
Captive State, a recent exhibit from the Historic New Orleans Collection, documented Louisiana’s troubling relationship with mass incarceration over the past 300 years. Eric Seiferth, curator and historian with the HNOC, writing in a guest column for the Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate, explains why Louisiana is backsliding on efforts to end mass incarceration and urges people to strive for a better path forward:
The criminal legal system and public safety are as relevant to New Orleanians, Louisianans and Americans as ever. Efforts toward criminal legal reform that had bipartisan nationwide support in the last decade have evaporated, and incarceration rates are once again increasing without a corresponding drop in violent crime. … In grounding this contemporary reality in three hundred years of history and data, Captive State makes a necessary contribution to meaningful public discourse on what a brighter future for all can be.
States jostle over $50 billion Rural Health Fund
The federal tax and spending megabill that President Donald Trump signed in July is projected to cut federal Medicaid spending for rural health care by $137 billion over the next decade. The new law includes a $50 billion fund to address rural health issues, a move to assuage some lawmakers’ concerns for how the massive cuts will impact rural hospitals. But as KFF’s Sarah Jane Tribble reports, recent guidance from leaders of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is creating confusion:
But helping rural hospitals, as originally envisioned, is quickly becoming a quaint idea. Rather, states should submit applications that “rebuild and reshape” how health care is delivered in rural communities, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services official Abe Sutton said late last month during a daylong meeting at Washington, D.C.’s Watergate Hotel. Simply changing the way government pays hospitals has been tried and has failed, Sutton told the audience of more than 40 governors’ office staffers and state health agency leaders — some from as far away as Hawaii.
Tribble explains how money from the Rural Health Transformation Fund will be allocated and how part of states’ funding will be predicated on adhering to Trump’s policy goals:
Half of the $50 billion will be divided equally among all states with an approved application; the other half will go to states that win points. Of the second half, $12.5 billion will be allotted based on a formula that calculates each state’s rurality. The remaining $12.5 billion will go to states that score well on initiatives and policies that mirror the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” objectives.
Number of the Day
68% – Percentage of Medicare beneficiaries in Louisiana who had three or more chronic conditions in 2023. (Source: The Commonwealth Fund)