Huffington Magazine Issue 34 | Page 61

LEFT OUT ments, he has portrayed his opposition as a principled stand in favor of fiscal prudence. Yes, he says, the costs are to be borne by Washington initially, but the states have to pick up a share. “This is not free health care,” Jindal said last summer during a conference call with reporters, adding that the Medicaid expansion would cost Louisiana $3.7 billion over the first decade. Obamacare proponents dispute such accounting as both flawed and incomplete. Expanding Medicaid nationally under Obamacare would increase total state costs by just 2.9 percent, or $76 billion in total between 2013 and 2022, according to research conducted by The Urban Institute and published by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The federal government would cover the rest of the r