There. Dale, are you here . He does casework. He may come in later. Who am i seeing . Catherine stewart back there. With the bad light. With the bad leg. If theres an issue in particular that you think one of our staff can help you with, i need to go seek them out. I will tell you that scripture says the greatest among you shall be your servants. Our office desires to be the greatest service. They desire to serve you as citizens of looming as a of louisiana and the united states. So give them the opportunity. That said, and a particular order, do we want to come speak . Kathy is not here. You are speaking for her. Good afternoon. My name is casey. I work for the Governors Office of Homeland Security and emergency preparedness. Really quickly this afternoon, i wanted to update you a little bit on Hazard Mitigation funding that will be coming to the state from fema. We manage that program on behalf of the state. We are going to be working with the parishes, and in particular east baton rouge parish, on utilizing that funding to address drainage improvement and flood protection type projects that better protect you and our citizens in the years to come. That funding is not really Recovery Funding in terms of fixing what happened. You will hear more about programs relative to that. But but those mitigation dollars are in place to help better protect us moving forward. To to reduce the risk of the type of flooding we had last year and so many of you are familiar with. If you have got specific questions on that, i will be hanging around after the event and happy to address any of those questions you might have or to speak with you oneonone about grant assistance programs you may have questions about. Thank you. Hi. I am bill, a native louisiana jn louisianan. Ive been working with the state to help prepare for disasters, as well as working the recovery issues from the flood. I have a i have a lot of folks here in the back come out in the lobby that will be able to entertain individual questions or issues you might have with fema, including National Flood insurance, as well as individual assistance programs that we have. We will have those folks in the back during that time. I want to i want to take the opportunity to make sure you are ready for hurricane season. We we have a website called ready. Gov that you can use to get yourself ready for hurricane season. We already had Tropical Storm cindy. We weathered that storm. Hurricane season isnt over until november, so just make sure you are prepared. If you if you have issues that we can discuss with fema, i have folks in the back that are experts in each of those programs that can help you through that. I will turn it back over. Hello, my name is pat forbes. Im the executive director of the Louisiana Office of community development. Our job is to help distribute funds that hud and Congress Send to us for recovery from disasters. The governor, senator cassidy, the rest of the delegation have worked very hard to get some 1. 7 billion allocated to the state of louisiana for recovery from the floods in march and august. Our job now is to distribute that and get it to the people who need it. The biggest piece of that is our Homeowner Program. We have a program. If you are a homeowner and your primary residence was at home, and you flooded, with very we very potentially have funds to help you, even if you rebuilt. E ven if you make 1 million a year. Even if you have not started. Because of the last appropriation we just got, we have up until that point not accept it you were ineligible if you had structural Flood Insurance. Now we are able to start opening the gate for even people who had Flood Insurance, but still have unmet needs. So my main message here today is, we have a survey, an Online Survey that is the first step in applying for assistance through this program. You have to fill out the survey. You can do that online at restore. La. Gov. You can call 8667352001 if you have not filled out the survey. We have folks out in the hall right now with computers, and they can fill it out for you, as we need today. Even if you are not eligible right now, you may very well be eligible in the future as more funds are available. Senator cassidy, the governor, three, and the rest of the delegation need the information we are gathering through this survey to go back to congress and explain why we need more money for this recovery. So the so the big message is here, please fill out the survey. They can help you. You can help your neighbors. It can help you. It can help your neighbors. It takes about three or four minutes to fill out. It is easy. If you need if you have your fema id number, thats great. You dont need it. Go online and fill out the survey. At that point, we invite people in to applications. We are doing this in phases so it doesnt impact your recovery and we can continue quickly once we invite you into application. We have we have already sent out some 9000 invitations to get in the program. We will be sending more out. If you dont fill that out, it will have negative impacts. Thank you, sir. If we dont understand where you are in your recovery, we dont have the full picture and we cant still we cant tell the story in washington about how our recovery is short. We have to hear from you. If you have neighbors, friends, family who were flooded and were homeowners, please ask them if they have filled out the survey. We need everyone we can we need this. We did everyone who can fill out the survey. We have other programs that i will talk about before taking questions. We have programs for rental housing. If you were the owner of a rental housing unit from one to seven units when the flood it, when the floods hit and you flooded, we can give you money to take out your construction loan that you have got to get your apartment back in service. We want to do that. The second part of that is, what we require for the money is that you rent to people of low to moderate income at affordable rates. You are going to reduce your rent for a while for the purpose of getting our funds and getting those units back in place. We we have got a multifamily unit rental program. We have got a Small Business program. All of these are on restored. La. Gov, and you can get information about where to go. You can access the information. Sen. Cassidy here is sharing robinson sharon robinson, helping people to sign up. Tell them how easy it is. Ive been helping coordinate members. I did not personally flood, but not of people but a lot of people not being computer literate, helping them with that. It takes six to seven minutes. 10 minutes or less and you are done. Sen. Cassidy any questions for pat . Yes maam. Of the additional funding [inaudible] sen. Cassidy thank you. The question is about people who took out sba loans. Im sorry i dont have good news for you on that. We have tried and tried to get relief from the stafford act rule that says an sba loan is a duplication of benefits like a grant. I will explain with some numbers to help make sure that maybe it will make it easier. If you had 50,000 worth of damage in your home of the flood damage and got a 25,000 sba loan, we cant replace whatever portion of that loan was for structural repair. We can replace anything that was for contents or other aspects of the house. We can also cover the unmet need above 25,000 that you borrowed. But we cannot replace the sba loan. Federal law considers that a duplication of federal benefits. Im sorry, we have not been able to get a different answer. That is the answer at this point. Weve attempted to address that in washington. That is federal law. Yes maam . [indiscernible] i spoke to the loan officer who made my loan, and he referred me to el the Servicing Center of sba in el paso, texas. Both of those people told me that sba does not consider those loans as duplicate benefits as long as the money for reimbursement follows item seven of your loan document. I have i have copies of that. I have given it to your office and to several legislatures already. Basically, what it says is that the reimbursement needs to be assigned to the sba for the loan to be paid down. Thats what two different sba officers told me this week. All i can say im sorry, all i can say is that it is exactly the opposite of what hud, sba, multiple im sorry. I cant [indiscernible] sen. Cassidy michael, hold up your hand. Dale is back there. Those are two caseworkers. Maam, if you could connect with michael or dale, let them get your information, and we will try to get to the bottom of it for you. Theres a gentleman back here that had a question. J ust a second, maam. Im 71 years old. I lost four pieces of property and to businesses. I pay plenty of taxes. It was not raining when my house flooded. My house is for fleet is four feet higher than where it should have been. Sba wants me to borrow money for contractors that rip me off. And i have to fix my other houses. Sba already told me that i was approved. My credit score was 825. They told me already i could get almost any amount of money i need. They sent me some money, but i sent it back. They would give me food stamps. They wouldnt do nothing. Fema gave me 12,000. I havent heard anything. All my neighbors got the max. I got 12,000, and im 71. I want to know what lawyers i can use to sue them. I wasnt supposed to flood. Im for the higher then supposed to be im four feet higher than im supposed to be. Sen. Cassidy i cant speak to the fema piece. Our neighborhood landlord rental program, you would be eligible for that. Go to restore. La. Gov or go to the Housing Association and talk to them about the landlord program. We can give you money to take out on whatever loan you did to do construction. One more time, neighborhood landlord program. Thank you. Sen. Cassidy the pastor was saying people are not moving back to the rental properties, so obviously we needed program to get folks back into their rental properties, which is good for this area. And weve got it. 36 million available for people. [inaudible] [no audio] [inaudible] knows her note or no sir. If you provide the of four for a certain period of time, you dont have to pay anything back the Affordable Housing for a certain period of time, you dont have to pay anything back. As long as you can demonstrate it flooded and that you got it back in shape. All we really care about is providing the Affordable Rentals for certain period of time. Sen. Cassidy jennifer is passing out information. If you need more info, you can [inaudible] sen. Cassidy pause for a second. We will take some more questions. Louisiana resource told me if i borrow any money from sba, they were going to take all that out of what it cost me to fix my own house. Thats right. Thats the same answer i had before. Im sorry its not different. Weve asked and asked, but an sba loan we cant replace that with the grant. Sen. Cassidy we are going to take some more questions. Let me do what i should have done off the back and say thank you. I want to thank the pastor and his church for hosting. I should pass out the plate for a love offering. [laughter] he said, dont tempt him. For a love offering. [applause] he said, dont tempt him. [laughter] cynthia, wherever you are, my staff says you are fantastic. I see miss helen answering the phones plus a thank you as well. I want to thank Law Enforcement. We saw we saw Steve Scalise gunned down. Those there to attend were also injured. I think Law Enforcement. When i first came to this church at Montrell Jackson ceremony, all of us should thank our Law Enforcement and others. Give them a big round of applause. [applause] wt winfield is back there. Erica green is right there. Judge pamela johnson, are you still here . Thank you. Wonderful to see you. And then, state representative edmond jordan looking as long as young as i once did. Kent james is back here ted james is back here. He is usually giving me heck on twitter. I i should say giving me have. Giving me hack. Say giving me heaven. [laughter] i also want to thank a woman i dont know her name. I was having a townhall and someone submitted a question. She said, as i recall, we flooded in North Baton Rouge and theres not been a federal official who has come to North Baton Rouge. I told my staff, we are going to North Baton Rouge. This is during work hours. There are some folks working now. If youre getting off of work, you can go to one. If you are at work, you can go to the other. But i mean it. We are here to serve yall. [applause] thank you. I can promise you, we may disagree on issues, but we probably dont disagree as much as you might think we do. What we can agree upon is that folks in this neighborhood who flooded need to have the assistance that allows them to restore their life in a way which restores the community. As as one example, because this topic will come up later, i think all of you know or many of you may know i work at a hospital for many years, taking care of the uninsured. We also have a common goal of how we provide health care to all americans in a way which meets their needs . [applause] [indiscernible] [applause] sen. Cassidy bill, do you want to come up . Excuse me. We will talk health care, but this was originally for those folks who are trying to put their lives back together who have not yet been able to. I will do the first part of this for those such folks. By the way, is there a woman here, Virginia Johnson . Virginia johnson is the friend of a close family friend of ours. Let me give this question to whomever. I t rained. Had a leak and a roof leak in a roof. It ruin her ceiling. She got not hundred dollars to fix resealing, but nothing got 900 to fix her ceiling, but nothing to fix the roof. So the damage to the ceiling continues. This seems a crazy sort of program. I know theres an explanation. I am only transmitting a question that was put through miss johnson to our friend, to me, to yall. Is there a way to address that . Depends on if that was preexisting damage. N a k3 in a case where you have preexisting damage that wasnt caused by the storm, that is not eligible fema does not provide everything. Fema is there to get you safe and secure so you can recover. We dont provide the full recovery. If somebody does have a question regarding that, we have our individual assistant folks out at the tables in the back. They are right behind the doors out there outside in the lobby. If you have your fema number, they can look up your case. They can look up your individual situation and address it oneonone with you to make sure you understand what the program is and if there is an issue. It able. s always appeal there may be other way through voluntary agencies. I just want to say that under the Homeowner Program, it doesnt matter. If you flooded in one of the two floods and you access assistance from our program, it doesnt matter whether damage was caused by the flood or not. When our program leaves, we have a little more flexibility than fema. When we leave, your house will be safe and sanitary. It doesnt matter in the Homeowner Program whether the damage occurred from the storm are not, as long as you did have damage from the storm and meet the other criteria. Sen. Cassidy but a point on it. For jimmy johnson, Virginia Johnson, if it is leaking through the roof even if it was preexisting and can and it continues to be ruined, can get assistance through the program. She needs to sign up. My staff tells me we just put the survey on our facebook page. You may have to wade through a lot of comments from people who dont particularly like me. Or you can come down here and speak to sharon. She can help you get connected. The point is and theres also folks out there but you need to register. Just sign up. You dont even have to do the survey. Velma, where are you . Talk to us. Im a widow. I had heart surgery and live by myself. It was raining inside. I have to put buckets i need a whole new roof and i dont have any income to fix it. I need help. Sen. Cassidy same answer . She can go register . Her roof is just totally messed up. Assuming that you are eligible for the program, which means you had one foot of water or more [inaudible] so the storm not the shingles off the roof knocked the singles the shingles off the roof. If the wind knocked the roofing off that would be fema , individual assistance issue it sounds like you may not be eligible for the Homeowner Program if you did not have one foot of water. Sen. Cassidy get michaels card over there. If you feel like you could appeal the fema ruling, he is the gentleman, or dale, who could address that. Yes maam . Anthere is there investigation as far as the flooding because my home never flooded before how do we prevent future problems . What are we doing to prevent future flooding in our areas . Every time it rains, people are paranoid. What are we doing with the drainage systems . Is this in any way associated with the flood mapping that was done in 2008, where a lot of properties that werent in the flood area are now considered in the flood area even though they may not have let it have flooded . Is that associated . Sen. Cassidy this was considered a 1000 year flood. We are told it will not impact our future flood maps. It is really considered a one off. Again, i grew up in baton rouge. Used to play on the jet and howell park when i was a boy. I told pastor i had never seen this area with standing water. It was just amazing. One, we know there was a lot of water. Secondly, what we can say compared to when i was a little boy maybe you werent born yet is a lot of land that was not developed is now developed. Land that used to absorb water in the dirt now has concrete on it, and instead of being absorbed in the dirt, it runs off into the drainage ditches, and those drainage ditches quickly backup. I went to a i went to a meeting with the army corps of engineers, and they said we had authorization for 40 years to clean out wards creek to make it drain better. I i said, you cant do that. 40 years ago, prairieville was nothing more than a prairie. Now prairieville is where thousands of homes are. So they said they are going to do a basin wide analysis of what can be done. We we know that the problem has kind of grown bit by bit. It may it may take a bit by bit solution. A diversion probably would have helped this area. Oh yes, hello. Governor edwards asked president Obamas Administration for money to complete that, and for whatever reason, the Obama Administration decided not to do that. We did subsequently get on the last budget bill 6. 7 million to begin it. If we can get the comey diversion going, that would be a major help in preventing this area from flooding once more. We we arely i will say working on a new Flood Insurance program. Im working with democratic senator from new york kirsten gillibrand. In it we have 4 billion a year for socalled flood litigation. If there is socalled flood mitigation. If there is something a community can do to decrease their risk of flooding so that you dont have to pay out Flood Insurance premiums, we think it is a very good bill. We dont know if it is going to be our bill that passes, but everyone else is copying off our bill, so we think ultimately most of it get through. We are hoping the diversion, the coursework for the basin wide analysis, as well as the 400 million per year that would come out of our bill if it is approved, could all be used by this community and others to lower the risk of flooding. On on the other hand, sea levels are rising. We can anticipate at least coastal is serious at least coastal areas to have more problems with flooding going forward. We are not coastal but it is going to be a nationwide issue for a while. Shes asking what kind of timeframe. My house flooding, i know the drainage system has been cut off for some reason. I am trying i am trying to understand how could i have two drains in my yard and my house still floods . Something had to have been done before to divert the water. How are we preventing that, and what . Sen. Cassidy some of these may be for your councilwoman and state rep. Some of that is local implementation of federal dollars. That the city drain. Yes maam . Theres a couple of things i think can help prevent. One thing is before we had the semantic grounds that is a very , good point the rivers were dredged. All of our waterways were dredged out so that it widened. That hadnt been done. I dont know whose fault that is. Part parish, part federal, part state. Everybody has a piece of this high this pie. We need we need those true rivers dredged out and widened and deepened to a comedy the change in the sea flow and every thing else. I t is up to us, as well. I cant tell you how many people in my subdivision cut the grass and then put the trash in the drain. Thats got to go somewhere. If you are living with two drains, that means everybody around you is putting that trash or that weeds or whatever. We have got to start living like a community again. We have got to start living like a community. The last part, how do we stop building out into our cow pastures and land. Ow do we stop building out into our farmland to save it to be the area where water can go . That has got to be a federal, state something. [applause] sen. Cassidy one aspect of this is, for example, one thing i think the corps is going to do, the reason why wasnt flowing rapidly enough that the reason water wasnt flowing rapidly enough is there was all this brush. They said they would clear that out. Secondly when . Sen. Cassidy i will check with the corps on that and post it. My understanding is that process should have already begun. In terms of dredging, thats a little bit more complicated because the dredging, you need army corps of engineers permits. Your kid is born in going to college sometimes by the time you get the permit. We have to have an extradited permit process so it doesnt take forever to get that done. Lastly, regarding zoning laws, those laws are not federal, although you do have to get army corps permit for some things. Those are typically more local and state. Maam, you had your arm up. For community development, he said if you have one feet of water at least. I know i had one feet of water, but when fema came out they said i had six inches of water. I sent photographs. I had another contractor come out, and they still denied me an appeal. They said that was their final answer. But i know i had more than six inches of water. How do you go against that . Senator cassidy if you have photos, that becomes a question of fact. Dale or michael, get their card. We can help you if you feel as if you need to speak with fema. Let us see if we can help you. Yes. Yes question yes . Sen. Cassidy there will be money for the corps of engineers. Thank you. Let me get by. Thank you. This the situation. You are 72 years old. Y ou had Flood Insurance. Your Mortgage Company took the Flood Insurance money to pay the mortgage off. You asked them not to do it. They took it anyway. You have gone to restore louisiana, fema, everywhere you can go and everywhere you go, they turn you down. Now, fema is saying we got a trailer. Now fema is saying you need to start working on your house and i need money to buy this stuff to fix the house. If you dont fix it, we will either put you out of the trailer make you pay rent. Helpverybody i went to for turned me down. Where do i go . Sen. Cassidy im sorry, i apologize. Ok. Bill, did you hear that . You want to comment, maam . It might be a case where pats program can help you up at restore louisiana. As far as femas programs, we just get you safe and secure. It is not going to fix everything. In some cases you get turned down because you had insurance, but you can always appeal that. I have my folks in the back that can help you with that to look up your fema number and see if it is still appealable or not. I will reiterate most people with Flood Insurance right now are not eligible for the restore program because we just didnt have enough money to cover everybody. I will tell you we just added the phase one people who have Flood Insurance. That is if you are low to moderate income and either elderly or have persons with disabilities living in your household, and you live outside the 100 year floodplain. You you could be eligible. We are continuing to expand that eligibility as we get more money. Please fill out the survey. Dont give up on restore even if you are not eligible right now, which is likely. [inaudible] sen. Cassidy have you spoken to the restore people . Sen. Cassidy yes maam . High mr. Cap hi mr. Cassidy. Im really concerned about preexisting conditions and health care. Thats what i came for. [applause] i flooded also, but i want to know if you would vote for this health care that trump has right now. What can you do to stop this foolishness . [applause] sen. Cassidy when President Trump ran for office, President Trump said he wished that all continued to be covered, to care for those best to care for those with preexisting conditions, to illuminate the mandates from obamacare, and to lower premium to eliminate the mandates from obamacare, and to lower premiums. The current bill has not yet been revealed. The legislation you spoke of has been superseded. Frankly, we have not yet seen what the legislation will be upon which we voted upon which we will vote. Been superseded. Why . Sen. Cassidy i do not defend the process. I dont. I just dont. O n the other hand, what i can say is that the concern regarding preexisting conditions has been one that i have been expressing, and others have been expressing, and i would judge the final product as to how well it addresses the issue of existing preexisting conditions. I was going to wait until 15 till to take health care questions. Lets just see if there is one more Flood Insurance question. Yes maam, and the way back in the way back. [inaudible] sen. Cassidy what is the turnaround rate for restore louisiana . You still back there, pat . [inaudible] sen. Cassidy right. You said you are in phase three . Ok, the question is, she sent in her survey right at the very beginning, and she hasnt been invited to apply yet. I will restate we are going through all of our survey respondents in phases. The first phase is low to moderate income first two phases are low to moderate income people who are either elderly or have a person with disabilities living in our in their household. We sent out invitations to every single phase one and two survey completion already. We are about halfway through phase three. If you havent gotten an email from us and you filled out the survey, and our response says you are in phase three, you should be getting any mail from and email from us us inviting you to apply within the next [indiscernible] couple of weeks. [indiscernible] [indiscernible] thats right. [indiscernible] [indiscernible] thats right. [indiscernible] im sorry. Look, this recovery takes longer than anybody likes. I promise you that. The reason you are getting any and email every month is because we want to at least let people know where they are [inaudible] im sorry about the language. What really needs to tell you is we still have you in the system, and you are coming up. What ibet know is that we have sent about half of phase three invitations out, so it is not shocking to me that you are in phase three and havent been invited to apply yet, but you should be in the next two weeks, if not one week. You should be getting an invitation within days saying, please come to let the to fill out the application. You can do it online, help us online, you can do it at the Housing Assistance center. Some folks in phase three have already gotten that invitation and have filled out their application. Some folks have not. It is just a random process of selecting another 1000 and sending those invitations out. [inaudible] yes, absolutely. Sen. Cassidy this gentleman is a vietnam veteran we spoke with on the way in, your question. Im a vietnam veteran, honorable discharge. Senator cassidy thank you very much for your service. [applause] i dont know how many of us in here were born and raised in this area. I know it has never been told on the news or whatever, but ive monitored this rain for years. There are too many wooden fences around the fences around the house in baton rouge to stop the water. The pump the water out of the Mississippi River into all the rain. They never put it on the news. Everybody knows ms. Houseman barbecue. I defend the pride. Its manmade water, his heavenly water its heavenly water. When you pump water 180 miles out i had different family members that go out and check the canal. Youve got a hole behind this church right right here. I its real deep. I look at it. How can that water come all the way to flood you . We need to do something. It needs to be told this area was flooded. [inaudible] sen. Cassidy yes sir . [inaudible] senator, my question is, are you sure we are not going to be so short on the Louisiana Home Shelter Program . Im a contractor. The prime contractor i work for i am asking the senator, if we are not going to be so short like the Louisiana Home Shelter Program, i work as a contractor, and my bill was 11,000, and the state paid the prime contract of i want to be sure if this 46,000. Program is going to be better than what happened in the home Shelter Program. [applause] sen. Cassidy governor edwards has put good people in charge of the program. I cant comment beyond the fact that we have worked on a federal level and governor edwards worked with us to try and get resources for our state. I will i will go back to the need to fill out surveys. If it turns out we need more money, the only way we would justify it is if we had enough folks fill to fill out surveys to establish the need. Just to say that, we want it to be adequate. We will not know until it happens. The only way we can work towards that is if we all chip in. Lived like a community. Part of that is to establish that if you are one of those who have a need, even if youre need has already been addressed, for those who have not, have them addressed going forward. [inaudible] sen. Cassidy i am taking the questions as they come. I am not screening them now. If you wish to chant and keep others from being able to speak sen. Cassidy i am taking the or be heard, that is not civil. I ask you, respect the right of others to speak into be heard. And to be heard. Please. I have Flood Insurance. I have hazard insurance. I has and i have flooded. Sen. Cassidy have you not been paid by the National Flood Insurance Program . I have not. This is a similar situation from when i first returned home. Five days later, the water is gone. There was just a little water standing. We thought that was the only water in the house. We learned, three weeks later, that the water was actually in the walls. It has been held since then. Hell since then. They had to cut the walls out. We have water lines. You can clearly see that. It has all stay the same. They say they have not denied of, but they have not paid either. We are coming up on one year. To have additional moneys out for litigation is horrible. It does not make any sense. I have not contacted fema, because i have Flood Insurance. The water that came from the ceiling, like ms. Johnson, the hazard insurance is saying, well, we are going to apply the storm deductible. That is 20 of the value of my home. That was not that much damage from the ceiling. The major damage came in from the flood that the insurance should cover that is not coming. Is not covering. Sen. Cassidy if anyone knows how to use the legal system, it is you. Gentlemen come up one of you address that . The only thing i can add is that we have heard a lot of stories about folks not getting what they need from their insurance company. I know that southern lsu southern law school, lsu law school, and other Legal Services are providing free Legal Services. I have a bunch of lawyers at my house. But do they charge you, because these people do it for free . Get michaels contact, because sometimes just a call from the office makes a difference. Sir, you were raising her hand. Sen. Cassidy let me get the microphone here please. I want to thank you for coming out. What is your take on medicaid and allowing the states to control certain parts of the builder President Trump is pushing . We have a serious problem in louisiana with health care. With their past governor. I think that may take place again down the line. Sen. Cassidy that is a broad question that we can address. Thank you, sir. We dont know over the final where the final bill will end up. Lets talk about what we currently have. The Medicaid Expansion has been a lot of money for louisiana. Let me describe house that has worked how that has worked. For the first few years, the federal taxpayer, which is us through our federal taxes, have been paying 100 of the cost. That begins to change, i think it is next year. Senator urging barrow, thank you for being here. I think it is next year we begin paying 5 or maybe this year. By 2020, we louisiana taxpayers will be responsible for 10 of the cost for the Medicaid Expansion. Period,. When the federal government decided to pay 100 , predictably, state spends a lot of money. It was not their money. It was the federal governments money. The way to illustrate that come in traditional medicaid, what we have before the expansion, the combined amount of money at the state and federal government put up was 4300 per person. Under under the Medicaid Expansion, the combined amount of money that a stage typically puts up a state typically puts up is 6,300. It is 50 more than the traditional medicaid. Many of those in the expansion are working. They are healthy about the work. They are not sick or. It turns out, state paid a lot more. They put a lot of people into the program, too. Why do i go through that explanation . To establish that when the state of louisiana begins to have to put up 10 of the cost of the expansion, it is going to be a lot of money. It will be 310 million a year. That is going to be in addition to the amount currently spent. Not just our state. In california, their 10 is 2. 2 billion a year. That is just 10 . The point i make two folks is that our status quo is not really sustainable. In oregon and arkansas, a blue state and a red state, both expanding medicaid, state legislators have recommended either completely getting rid of the expansion or pulling it back to 100 of the federal poverty level, the eligibility, because their states cannot afford that the 10 that will be required in 2020. [inaudible] [ applause] sen. Cassidy again, if we can be civil. [inaudible] sen. Cassidy again, sir, if i can finish answering this gentlemans question. I believe i am answering pretty thoroughly. To continue. The question is, how do we come up with a sustainable system . Ask california. Sen. Cassidy Somebody Just yelled singlepayer. California suggested a singlepayer. California state budget is 200 billion for everything. A singlepayer. Would cost their state 400 billion dollars. It would be double the cost of their entire budget. I worked at the hospital for 25 years. No offense to my friends who are in the state legislature and no offense to myself but you really dont want politicians controlling your health care dollars. I would say from my experience please let me talk. No need to , be rude. When you find that if the patient says the power, the system lines up. We wish we could get democrats. We we wish we could get democrats but we cannot unfortunately. We would allow each state to do what is best for their state. If california love status quo, they can do that. If it is not working for louisiana, louisiana would have the ability to do something different. In every in every scenario, we would devolve power down to the patient. By the way, this gentleman keep shouting about taxes. Under the bill, we do not do anything for the of the obamacare bill. W e take them, we use them, and then we do tax reconciliation, which is coming next. That is when all of this can be we take them, we use them, and then we do tax reconciliation, which is coming next. That is when all of this can be addressed. Folks are yelling about the taxes. Some that would not be repealed. I cannot square about that but that is what is being said. [inaudible] sen. Cassidy with that said, then the question is, what about medicaid itself . If you rollback Medicaid Eligibility and put people on private insurance, that can be a good thing. If your credit is adequate for the private insurance let me go back to Medicaid Expansion in louisiana. In louisiana, we are not spending 6,300 per person. We are spending 6,700 per person, which is more than a Blue Cross Blue Shield policy would cost. Of the same kind of benefit structure. We are spending more in louisiana Medicaid Expansion then we would for blue cross. Medicaid expansion in louisiana is spending blue cross rates. As a woman told me, her daughter is expansion and would like to continue it. She said, i have a hard time finding doctors that will see a medicaid patient. That is because medicaid rates pay doctors typically less than their cost to seeing patients. So she struggled to do that. That said if we can take , patients who are currently on medicaid and put them on private insurance, frankly i think that , is better. Secondly, some of the patients who have been on the Medicaid Expansion are actually employed and have the option to have insurance through their employer. In this case, taxpayers are paying for someones Health Insurance when they could, indeed, be getting it through their employer. Now, we as taxpayers may decide we want to give a subsidy to someone who could give there get their insurance from their employer, but we will pay higher taxes and there will be less money for roads and drainage higher education, and secondary , education. [rowdy crowd noise] sen. Cassidy that said it is kind of funny i am being criticized for being thorough too much. Ng that said, if we can move people to where they have access to care that is truly meaningful, going back to President Trumps campaign pledge, which is care for preexisting conditions, eliminate mandate, lower premiums, that would be good. Maam, what would you like to ask . I would like to say that, i filled out the survey and i got called in to do the interview. I got there, i did the interview on the same day i was in the office. Signing up for the interview on the sign is said no one could do any worse until they came out. Sen. Cassidy you are speaking of what program . The restore program. I signed the paper and was told that nobody else could come in and do any work until they come out and assess the house. The same day when i was in the office, i had another Catholic Charity calling to say they were going to do my floors and my kitchen and put my cabinets in and roof and i had to explain to her they couldnt come out until that came out from housing. I let her talk to the people in the office. They told me they will pull my file and they would be first to come up. That was about a month ago. They would assess my house so they could start the work. Or somebody could start the work. My roof i know you know all the , rain that has been coming this week, it is steady getting messed up. It is getting damaged because of the league leak coming from the roof. My question is, why does it take so long and why is it that they say no one else can come help until they come when they are not even coming on time . Sen. Cassidy i will clarify if a Charitable Organization is coming and doing work and not charging you for that, there is no reason for you not to let them do that. We will address that with training with our folks. That should not be the case. The only thing federal rules say is that if you go to work after you apply, we cannot reimburse you for that. That is why they ask you to stop. Taking four weeks to get from application to an inspection does not make sense to me, other than we are just ramping up the inspectors staff in the last three weeks. If i could get information from you, we will check and see where you are. Your inspection and valuation of loss should happen in the next week or two. Yes, maam. Yes, sir. Thank you for coming today. I want to talk about two points you made earlier. The first point about why obama did not the did not get the recovery money. The congress stopped that money. [applause] you are saying the people here who are speaking out who came to ask questions about health care, because they will be most affected are being rude for speaking cap. I want to you what is rude is kicking 22 Million People off of their health care in this country who you know cant afford it. [applause] he worked at the earl a Long Hospital for a long time. You know what people are like at their lowest. So to step on their next necks by taking them off of their health care at this point, that is cruel. [applause] what you need to do is go back to washington, d. C. And stand up for the people who are here and say, we need our health care. [applause] sen. Cassidy i am doing my make sure we continue coverage, care for those with preexisting condemning conditions eliminate mandate and , lower premiums. And that is my commitment, and that is why i am working toward. Thank you. Including that, totally we are , almost 10 minutes past the end time. I know there will be folks frustrated, because you did not ask, but we have tried to take as many questions as possible. My staff is scattered around. We have another town hall meeting later. Thank you for coming. Most of all, i thank you so much for coming. As the pastor started off, this is democracy in action. Thank you for contributing to that democracy. Thank you. [rowdy crowd noise] [applause] announcer well Congress Continues on an 11 day break congress, louisiana congressman clay higgins visited a nazi the situation cap and posted this video camp and posted in this video. The guards droppecy
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