Medicaid Spending Supports Job Growth

A new article by the Louisiana Budget Project summarizes a recent report by the Louisiana Hospital Association. The article looks specifically at Medicaid’s important role in Louisiana’s health care system and in the state’s economy. The article explains why Medicaid is so effective at creating jobs and shows state specific data and statistics, including a chart with jobs created and personal earnings by state region.

Here is an excerpt:

Around 1.2 million Louisianans—more than a quarter of the state’s population—are currently enrolled in Medicaid. The program made more than $5.5 billion in payments to public and private providers—including hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, and pharmacies—in FY10 to pay for the health care of enrollees, and another $825 million in payments to hospitals that care for large numbers of uninsured patients….

…While the primary intent of the Medicaid program is to provide health-care services to low-income Louisianans, a body of research has shown that it has the added virtue of supporting economic growth and creating thousand of good paying jobs—a conclusion that was confirmed yet again in last week’s LHA report, which called Medicaid a “net engine of economic development” for Louisiana.

View the full article and the LHA’s “Hospitals and the Louisiana Economy, 2011” report.