BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – Louisiana health officials discussed significant changes to Medicaid and SNAP programs during the annual Louisiana Department of Health shareholder meeting, including new work requirements and restrictions on food purchases.
The department plans to fight rising healthcare costs by modernizing systems to better identify gaps in coverage. Louisiana currently ranks last for overall health in the country.
LDH Secretary Bruce Greenstein said the department’s focus this year is changing the narrative and increasing innovation through reforms to both SNAP and Medicaid programs in the state.
New verification tools for SNAP
Camille Conaway, executive director of Economic Independence, said the state is introducing new tools to help case workers keep payment error rates down to comply with a new threshold set by federal legislation.
“Right now, or historically, when someone says well I make x or y, we had no way to actually verify that that was accurate, apart from them uploading their wage statement or offering some sort of documentation,” Conaway said.
The state must reduce its error rate to below 6% to avoid taking on additional costs.
“We’re changing policy, review cases before they’re authorized, we are doing everything we can to ensure that the state of Louisiana does not have to take on the burden of the cost of that benefit,” Conaway said. “So that is over and above our top priority because of how many people it will impact far beyond the snap program if we fail to get under that 6% rate.”
Medicaid work requirements
Around 1.5 million people use Medicaid in the state. Seth Gold, executive director of the Bureau of Health Services Financing, said changes to funding will bring new challenges.
“The major initiative that we’re really going to take over this next year is going to be the establishment of new work requirements for working-age adults that will hopefully help move individuals from dependence into independence and then furthering our efforts to engage in reducing fraud case and abuse,” Gold said.
Starting January 1, 2027, working-age adults will be required to demonstrate 80 hours of either school, work, training, volunteering, or a combination per month.
Secretary Greenstein said these changes will help set the state up for decades to come.
“When we have a stable budget, and when we’re building for sustainability, this is when it feels right because our investments are going to last for decades, not just for the next year or two,” Greenstein said.
SNAP food restrictions
Changes are coming to SNAP recipients in just a few weeks. A waiver excluding soft drinks, candy, and junk food from being purchased with SNAP dollars goes into effect on February 18.
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