Minor: Bryant might lose anti-Medicaid expansion ally

Gov. Phil Bryant, assuming he wins reelection next year, could find himself a lonely Medicaid expansion holdout in this close-knit Louisiana-Mississippi Republican neighborhood.

While Bryant has shown no signs of relenting on extending health care coverage to some 300,000 low-income Mississippians, the prospective next Louisiana governor has signaled he will break with incumbent GOPer Bobby Jindal on the state's anti-Medicaid expansion issue.

David Vitter, Louisiana's present Republican U.S. Senator, has said he will not seek reelection next year in order to run for governor. With Louisiana's often unpredictable politics Vitter will be no cinch to win, though he will certainly be the favorite to succeed Jindal.

Bryant has struck up a friendship with Jindal since both have emerged as arch-foes of every initiative--especially the Affordable Care Act--that President Obama has championed, plus the fact Jindal has chaired the Republican Governors' Conference.

Except, Jindal has national ambitions of snagging the Republican nomination for president in 2016, while homeboy Bryant has no such ambitions. But, on at least one occasion the ambitious Jindal has crossed the Big Muddy into his next-door Republican neighbor to make sure the local GOPers remember him when preferential primary time comes around. So far, I've not heard any Mississippi Republican bigwig talking about their favorite presidential prospect to carry the party banner in 2016.

Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants, had come on the Louisiana political scene as a Wonder Boy in the 1990s, going from Rhodes Scholar at age 24 to head (and radically revamp) the state's department of health and hospitals. His health care reforms won him national attention and elevation to a post as assistant secretary of the federal department of health and human resources in the elder Bush administration.

With an eye on a political future in Louisiana politics, Jindal had converted from Hinduism to Catholicism, obviously to raise his stock in the state's large Catholic population. Actually his first name is not Bobby, it's Piyush. He adopted the nickname Bobby from a television character.

Jindal in 2003 took his first shot at becoming Louisiana governor by challenging then Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, but Blanco, calling Jindal's touted hospital reforms "heartless," defeated him in a runoff. Blanco's perceived missteps in dealing with the 2005 Katrina crisis caused her not to seek reelection, thereby opening the way for Jindal to reach his goal of winning the governorship in 2007.

Taking the same track as his Mississippi Republican cohorts in opposing creation of a state health insurance marketplace under the Obama Affordable Care Act, Jindal has used the identical lame excuse as Bryant in opposing Medicaid expansion on grounds that expansion is too costly even though feds pick up the entire tab the first three years and at least 90 percent thereafter. Expansion of Medicaid in Louisiana would provide health care coverage for more than 200,000 needy residents, and a projected 300,000 in Mississippi.

The continuing anti-Medicaid expansion stance of Bryant and Jindal runs counter to the recent trend among Republican governors. Two weeks ago, Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania became the latest GOPer to sign up for expansion, under a negotiated plan tailored for his state. His move brought to nine the number of Republican governors to accept expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. Three other states headed by Republican governors are considering the move.

Jindal's luster with the Louisiana Legislature has long ago worn thin, Meanwhile he is under fire from The Times-Picayune and some other influential newspapers for doing an about-face on installing Common Core standards in the public school system. After initially endorsing Common Core, when Jindal became more visible as a presidential hopeful, he turned his back on the plan. In Mississippi, Bryant has sort of straddled the issue watching the anti-Common Core tea party out of the corner of his eye.

Bill Minor is a contributing columnist. Contact him at P.O. Box 1243, Jackson, MS 39215.