Kaiser Media Fellowships 2016 Louisiana Site Visits

In June 2016, the Foundation invited a group of journalists with a strong focus on health policy and state health reform to participate in a week-long fellowship program focused on health care in Louisiana, as it prepared to become the first state in the Deep South to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. The site visits in Baton Rouge and New Orleans gave the journalists the opportunity to hear from a variety of experts and stakeholders on replicable, inexpensive strategies for enrolling 375,000 people in Medicaid over a tight time frame; changes to the state’s model for providing care to low-income and uninsured people; technological advances for managing patient health; and collaborative partnerships in health care. The program included briefings by Gov. John Bel Edwards, Louisiana’s health secretary Rebekah Gee, Louisiana Medicaid Expansion Project Director Ruth Kennedy, and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, as well as visits to Medicaid enrollment centers and primary care clinics established after Hurricane Katrina. The journalists also toured facilities of three of the state’s major health systems, where executives provided updates on the anticipated impact of Medicaid expansion and on the health care environment post Katrina.

2016 Louisiana Site Visit Agenda

The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured published a fact sheet that summarizes Louisiana’s Health Care Landscape. The Foundation also produced a fact sheet on the state’s Medicaid expansion, Becoming “Healthy Louisiana”: An Overview of Planning Efforts to Implement the Medicaid Expansion.

Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak, a health policy correspondent with NPR, interviews Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards during the Kaiser Media Fellowships Louisiana site visits.

Participants

Jeff Cohn, health correspondent, WNPR public radio, Hartford, CT

Jonathan Cohn, senior health correspondent, The Huffington Post

Elizabeth Crisp, reporter, The Advocate, Baton Rouge

-“Louisiana officials praise Medicaid expansion; 225,900 have signed up as of Friday,” The Advocate, June 26, 2016

Melinda Deslatte, reporter, AP, Baton Rouge

-“Louisiana 1st state in Deep South to expand Medicaid,” AP, June 30, 2016

Gisele Grayson, senior producer science desk, NPR, Washington, D.C.

Anna Maria Barry-Jester, public health reporter, FiveThirtyEight

Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak, health policy correspondent, NPR, Washington, D.C.

-“Louisiana Medicaid Expansion Brings Insurance To Many New Orleans Musicians,” NPR, July 1, 2016

Noam Levey, national healthcare reporter, Washington bureau, The Los Angeles Times