Delegation asks for agreement on health care numbers

Louisiana’s congressional delegation is urging state and federal officials to determine how many people lack insurance and how much money is available to cover them, hoping to jump-start stalled health care overhaul negotiations.
The delegation sent the request in a letter Monday to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and state Health and Hospitals Secretary Fred Cerise.
The letter says resolving the questions is critical to determining how to revamp the state’s health care delivery system, including how to rebuild the charity hospital in New Orleans.
“A fundamental disagreement about these statistics has been a major obstacle that has prevented both health care redesign and the building of an appropriate tertiary care facility from moving forward,” says the letter initiated by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and signed by the state’s nine-member congressional delegation.
Federal and state officials, along with private health care interests, have produced conflicting estimates of how many people are uninsured and how many could be covered using the money that currently flow to the state’s charity hospital system. Estimates of how many people are uninsured in Louisiana range from 590,000 to more than 800,000.