Tag: Grand marshal

House Speaker Taylor Barras was described last week “as the ultimate gentleman” in the announcement that he would be the Mardi Gras Grand Marshal in his New Iberia hometown. Twice, adversaries tried to oust him and, by his own account, came close. Edwards must go in the election slated for October, Barras said. Or it could have been because he’s term-limited and going into his final year in the Louisiana House. Barras said that with a GOP supermajority in the House and/or a Republican sitting in the governor’s office on the fourth floor of the State Capitol, the Affordable Care Act, or more specifically the Medicaid expansion part of it, will finally be emasculated. Barras points out that about half of the state’s $34 billion budget comes from the federal government, mostly in the form of Medicaid reimbursements, and should that money go away, the state would be unable to cover Medicaid expenses without raising taxes. As part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the federal government picked up nearly every penny of the costs for covering the working poor with Medicaid. The federal government will be sending Louisiana money from taxpayers in other states to fund the remaining 90 percent of the costs. Republicans are 11 seats shy of the 70-vote supermajority they would need to ignore Democrats in the 105-member Louisiana House of Representatives. Then come the fall, all the seats are up for election, including five that are held by Democrats in districts that strongly supported Republican President Donald Trump.