Louisiana Medicaid overhaul races clock

Despite a monthlong delay due to two hurricanes, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration still believes there is time to strike a deal with the Bush administration to overhaul the state's Medicaid program. The proposed pilot program would steer as many as 380,000 Medicaid recipients, most of them children, into managed-care networks. The administration's goal is to launch it in the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, and Shreveport regions by mid-2010. Louisiana is among a handful of states that still rely exclusively on a fee-for-service model to deliver Medicaid services.