BATON ROUGE -- Higher-than-expected health-care spending and a series of bureaucratic delays in implementing cost-cutting strategies will combine to produce a midyear shortfall in Louisiana's Medicaid program, the state's top health-care official said Monday. Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said he won't know the size of the shortfall until November, but told a Senate committee that he anticipates having to make cuts to his department's budget to keep it in balance. "I think we're looking at potentially a pretty significant shortfall," Levine told the Senate Finance Committee, which is holding hearings in anticipation of lean budget years as federal stimulus dollars and hurricane-recovery money disappear.
