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Shutdown threatens insurance subsidies La. residents’ health care costs could increase significantly
BY EMILY WOODRUFF Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By LESLIE WESTBROOK
ABOVE: Landscape architect Dan Spiller, right, with Land Architects, talks to guests about the Kergan Meditation Garden plan during a groundbreaking ceremony for the garden on Monday at Moncus Park in Lafayette. The garden will ‘create a peaceful, ornamental garden for reflection, healing, and beauty,’ according to a Moncus Park release. RIGHT: From left, Ted and Ann Kergan and their son, Luc, hold shovels during Monday’s groundbreaking. Construction of the garden is being made possible through a gift from the Kergan family.
The federal government shut down last week, and at the heart of the standoff is a fight over the health insurance subsidies that keep coverage affordable for hundreds of thousands of Louisianans. These enhanced premium tax credits lower the monthly cost of health insurance for people who buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. The enhanced subsidies were first introduced during the pandemic under the Ameri- “There’s no real can Rescue Plan Act and other option at later extended through 2025. that point. If you They allow some low-income can’t afford the enrollees to pay no monthly premiums and cap costs for premium on the exchange, you middle-income households at 8.5% of their income. probably then If the subsidies expire at just become the end of the year, Louisiuninsured.” ana would be hit harder than any other state, according KEVIN CALLISON, to a new analysis from the Tulane University Urban Institute. The state is health care projected to see the steepest economist decline in subsidized marketplace enrollment nationwide — a 61% drop, representing roughly 85,000 people losing coverage. Many people who lost Medicaid coverage during the recent unwinding qualified for marketplace subsidies, making it an easy transition, said Kevin Callison, a health care economist at Tulane University. Louisiana’s marketplace enrollment has grown from about 120,000 residents in 2023 to nearly 300,000 today. Already, people who have access to health insurance through their employers generally aren’t eligible for the marketplace subsidies. That leaves
ä See SHUTDOWN, page 4A
LSU considers creating new energy extension service
Unbiased mediator would be science-based information source BY DAVID J. MITCHELL Staff writer
Pumping and permanently storing carbon dioxide under vast stretches of Louisiana forest and farmland has triggered grassroots opposition, as the reality of more than 30 such proposed projects has
taken hold over the past two years. Companies proposing to convert hundreds to thousands of acres of farmland into solar farms have faced similar opposition from pockets of rural Louisiana, including in the state’s sugar cane growing regions. The “energy transition” that
some officials and business leaders say has arrived in Louisiana is bringing uncomfortable change and conflict to a state with nearly 125 years of history with oil and gas. During a recent energy symposium, a top LSU executive floated the concept of having the state’s
flagship university create a new cooperative extension service that could serve as an unbiased mediator and science-based information source on energy. The concept, however, may step into a potentially sensitive area for LSU, with some having previously raised concerns over whether the university has too close a relationship with the carbon capture and
Chicago and Illinois sue to stop Trump’s Guard deployment plan BY CHRISTINE FERNANDO
Associated Press
CHICAGO — Illinois leaders went to court Monday to stop President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops to Chicago, escalating a clash between Democraticled states and the Republican administration during an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the
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nation’s third-largest city. The legal challenge came hours after a judge blocked the Guard’s deployment in Portland, Oregon. The lawsuit in Chicago also raised the stakes after a violent weekend: Authorities said a woman was shot by a federal agent when Border Patrol vehicles were boxed in and struck by other vehicles. The city’s police superinten-
dent rejected suggestions that his officers were on the government’s side in volatile situations like that one. The Trump administration has portrayed the cities as war-ravaged and lawless amid its crackdown on illegal immigration. Officials in Illinois and Oregon say military intervention isn’t needed and
energy industries. The model, according to the LSU executive, Robert Twilley, could be the LSU AgCenter’s and LSU Sea Grant’s decades-old cooperative extension services. The AgCenter includes the popular Louisiana Master Gardener Program. Twilley, LSU vice president for
ä See LSU, page 4A
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at a news conference in Chicago on Monday. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By NAM y. HUH
ä See GUARD, page 4A
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101ST yEAR, NO. 99