It Begs the Question

I'm a lifelong Louisiana resident, and I'm watching Louisiana's budget problems work out.  I check the paper this morning, and I find this little interesting snippet from KATC.com:

Lawmakers have two days left to find up to $200 million in order to close this year's budget gap. 

Jeremy Alford, publisher and editor of LaPolitics, said, "If they can't find that cash by Wednesday at 6 p.m., we're talking about furloughs of employees at universities, summer classes shutting down. There are hospitals that are providing services that need that funding." (emphasis mine)

Which begs the question?  Which hospitals?  Governor Jindal closed many state hospitals.  Central Louisiana State Hospital is a shell of what it used to be, so is the Huey P. Long hospital in Pineville.  We don't need public hospitals, because we have Obamacare.  Basically, all the state does is pass-through Medicade and Medicare money.  I'm told that there is a roughly $64 million dollar shortfall in the DHH (Department of Health and Hospitals) budget this year, and I wonder why that is so.  Many of our por are treated at private hospitals under government contract.

Isn't everybody insured?  Isn't that what Obama promised us?  If those people aren't insured, why aren't they insured?  It's the law, right?

As a local doctor told me this morning.  "We've got Obamacare.  Cut the state contract to hospitals by 10% and the budget problem is solved."

Louisiana's budget crunch can be attributed to many things, but saying that we need extra dollars to fund hospitals is nonsense.   When times are tight, Louisiana household tighten their belts and make do on the money that they have.  Louisiana government should do the same thing.  I'm tired of being taxed to provide for the pore-an-starvin'.  Lots of Louisiana families are hurting, and this tax-and-spend legislature is only going to hurt us more in the long run.