Medicaid Expansion Timeline Under Edwards May Be Slowed

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — While he pledged to expand Louisiana's Medicaid program on "day one" in office, Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards is finding out that might be trickier than he thought.

The financing plan enacted by lawmakers is caught up in a swirl of legal questions, and Edwards is saying it might take a bit longer to expand Medicaid than he promised. Whatever the delay, Edwards says providing the government-funded health insurance to the working poor remains a top priority for his new administration when it takes office in mid-January.

But questions have been raised about the workability of legislation passed earlier this year that would provide the state's cost-share of a Medicaid expansion. Edwards says he doesn't want to enact the expansion until he's sure the state's financing share is covered.

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