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Louisiana’s 2025 KIDS COUNT® Rank
News: 06/09/2025 The well-being of Louisiana’s Children compared to children in other states slipped from 48th to 49th. For 36 years, Louisiana has averaged 49th in the nation when ranked among the states for child well-being.
The chart below shows Louisiana’s annual rank among the states as reported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The 2025 KIDS COUNT Datebook was updated on June 9.
Good Endeavors
Good: Read LDH’s Louisiana State Health Improvement Plan to learn about its four priority areas, the current work being done, and how you can become involved to improve Louisiana’s future for generations to come. Healthy adults and families improve child well-being.
Good: The LDH Whole Health Louisiana (WHL) State Plan is Louisiana’s first statewide plan to systematically address the widespread issue of childhood adversity and trauma through the integration of trauma-informed and healing-centered approaches in our state’s systems of care and support for children and families.
Bad Incarceration
News: 04/30/2025 Louisiana’s Jackson Parish Jail Violates Regulations, Holds Kids, by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, writing for The Appeal. (This news report is about the facility that sought to incarcerate children in shipping containers. Louisiana must do better.)
“OJJ licensing specialists visited the jail multiple times between July and February and found the facility violated state regulations 83 times. The Appeal also received reports for an additional 11 juvenile detention facilities inspected during the same period. Jackson Parish had more violations than the combined total of those facilities and almost 12 times more than the second-worst lock-up. The Jackson Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Office of Juvenile Justice did not answer a list of questions sent by The Appeal.”
Measles in Louisiana
News: 04/19/2025 Louisiana Department of Health confirms Greater New Orleans area measles case. Louisiana Department of Health’s public information about Measles is available here: https://ldh.la.gov/immunization-program/measles.
Whooping Cough
News: 04/03/2025 Two Louisiana Infants Die of Whooping Cough Amid Drop in Vaccinations
Immunization against Whooping Cough (pertussis) prevents 78% of cases in newborns and is 91% effective at preventing hospital stays.
Childhood vaccination rates are declining in Louisiana, putting more children at risk of illness. Still, Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) Surgeon General Dr. Ralph Abraham wrote in a memo, “While we encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider, LDH will no longer promote mass vaccination.”
Promoting vaccination promotes public health.
Measles Outbreak Grows
News: 05/14/2025 Measles math: What to know about 1,001 measles cases across the country : Shots – Health News : NPR
News: 04/18/2025 Texas DSHS reports measles outbreak grows to 597 cases, with 11 in Lamar County in northeast Texas.
News: 04/08/2025 With two deaths, the number of measles cases in Texas has grown to 505, and most cases are unvaccinated children and teens. Measles was declared eliminated from the US in 2000, and then childhood vaccination rates declined.
In Measles Outbreak is Call to Action for All of Us, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., states the “MMR vaccine is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease.” Yes, it is always good to eat a healthy diet, but against measles, even the federal government recommends Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccination.
News: 03/21/2025 The number of measles cases associated with the Texas outbreak has grown from two cases in late January to more than 100 by the end of February, and now to more than 270 cases in 11 counties. Texas is poised to make measles a nationwide epidemic, public health experts say.. The Texas outbreak has spread to New Mexico and Oklahoma. “Public health experts say Texas needs better messaging on vaccinations and quarantining and more people conducting contact tracing to contain the spread.”
News: 02/21/2025 In Louisiana’s neighboring state, a measles outbreak has grown to nearly 100 cases. The Texas cases are mostly children. Sixteen cases have been hospitalized. The outbreak has now spread into New Mexico.
“An ongoing measles outbreak that began in one of Texas’ least vaccinated counties has mushroomed to 90 cases across a cluster of seven counties in the state, according to an update by the Texas Department of State Health Services on Friday.” Texas measles outbreak reaches 90 cases; 9 cases in New Mexico by Beth Mole, Ars Technica.
Louisiana Legislature Making it Easier to Sentence Minors to Adult Prisons
Louisiana lawmakers consider making it easier to sentence more minors to adult prisons, by Julie O’Donoghue in Louisiana Illuminator
The Louisiana Senate’s Judiciary C committee voted 4-1 Thursday in favor of a state constitutional amendment to remove limitations on the number of crimes for which youth under the age of 17 could be sentenced as if they are adults.
Senate Bill 2 would allow legislators to craft new laws that expand the court’s ability to send minors – 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds – to adult prisons. The proposal alarms advocates for children, who believe it further erodes protections for youth in the criminal justice system.
Open Letter: 11/15/2024 Read our Open Letter to the Louisiana Legislature Regarding Senate Bill 2 of the 2024 Third Extraordinary Session.
State Task Force on Child Sexual Abuse Investigation Processes Holds First Meeting
News: 10/23/2024 Louisiana Task Force on Child Sexual Abuse Investigation Processes met about the handling of child abuse cases by Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services. According to Nolan McKendry’s report in The Center Square, Task force expresses concerns over handling of child abuse cases, “The hearing featured testimony from Kathleen Stewart Richey, a former juvenile court judge in East Baton Rouge now in charge of the newly established State Child Ombudsman program. Richey revealed that her office has already received about 250 complaints, 10% of which involve child sexual abuse.”
The Louisiana Child Ombudsman pointed to insufficient training and communication difficulties as critical opportunities to improve DCFS’s handling of cases.
The Louisiana State Senate’s Task Force on Child Sexual Assault Investigation Processes meeting agenda and video of the meeting are available on the Louisiana Legislature’s website.
Department of Justice Asked to Investigate PRTFs
News: 10/09/2024 Senator Ron Wyden, Chair of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, released two letters related to the results of the Senate Committee on Finance’s two-year investigation into four Residential Treatment Facility (RTF) operators: Universal Health Services, Acadia Healthcare, Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, and Vivant Behavioral Healthcare.
In his first Letter to Department of Justice regarding RTF Fraud, Senator Wyden introduces evidence sufficient to ask the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate whether these PRTF providers are committing Medicaid fraud by failing to care properly for Medicaid beneficiaries. This letter is about the PRTF providers’ improper treatment of children.
In a second Letter to Department of Justice regarding RTF Civil Rights Violations, Senator Wyden asks the DOJ to investigate whether states are violating the civil rights of children by placing them in residential facilities rather than providing access to community-based care. This letter speaks to the partial continua of care among the states, which has led to the overuse of PRTF services.
Senator Wyden’s press release is here:
Wyden asks DOJ to Investigate Medicaid Fraud by Youth Residential Treatment Facilities and Potential Civil Rights Violations by States | The United States Senate Committee on Finance:
https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-asks-doj-to-investigate-medicaid-fraud-by-youth-residential-treatment-facilities-and-potential-civil-rights-violations-by-states
Children: the National Export Import Business
News: 10/07/2024 The import business: How Arkansas residential psych facilities make money on out-of-state kids, in the Arkansas Times, tells the unconscionable story of children being placed from out-of-state, far from home, in Arkansas’ PRTF facilities without proper oversight. Unfortunately, Arkansas is not the only state that allows these intra-national placements. (South Carolina’s PRTFs care for so many children placed from other states that it sends its children out of state for PRTF care.) Children placed in out-of-state PRTF facilities are at increased risk of harm.
RStreet, Center-Right Think Tank, on Louisiana’s Juvenile Justice Rollback
Analysis: In light of the national bipartisan consensus on juvenile justice that has successfully reduced both youth incarceration and crime across the country, RStreet, a center-right think tank, provides an analysis of Louisiana’s 2024 rollback of recent juvenile justice reforms. Read Bipartisan Consensus on Juvenile Justice Crumbles in Louisiana. RStreet’s summary:
“Let Louisiana and Mississippi battle it out for the title of world’s prison capital. Other states would be wise to stick with proven public safety strategies that have been working for decades.”
Louisiana Requires Quality, State of the Art, Juvenile Detention Facilities
News: 08/20/2024 Louisiana has a long history of neglecting the maintenance of the old detention facilities it uses to incarcerate children. In light of current detention center efforts to license temporary shipping containers for use as detention cells for children, this news about Louisiana’s efforts to establish proper detention centers for children provides hope. Louisiana lawmakers support funding for juvenile detention centers
Not Unexpected, Child Vaccination Rates are Sliding
News: 08/13/2024 Given the Louisiana Legislature’s decisions to emphasize the parental right to choose to withhold childhood immunizations for medical, religious, and philosophical reasons, no one should be surprised to read today of a Surge of Child Vaccination Opt-Outs in Louisiana.
Sooner or later, opting children out of childhood immunizations will catch up with us and, taken to its extreme and because we live in community with others, return all of us to the days when childhood diseases made us miserable or, worse, had consequences that impacted our health throughout our lifetimes. Still, some of us remember our experiences with mumps, chicken pox, and measles.
So, take measles for example, “In the pre-vaccine era, measles was an epidemic disease; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that three to four million people in the United States were infected each year, of whom 400 to 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized and another 1,000 developed chronic disability from measles encephalitis.”
Louisiana Ranks 48th Among States on Child Well-being in 2024
Annual: 07/28/2024 Each year since 1990, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has produced the KIDS COUNT Data Book, a comprehensive report that assesses child well-being in the 50 states and ranks the states on several specific measures of child well-being.
The chart below shows the history of Louisiana’s overall rank among the states on child well-being and has been updated to include 2024. Louisiana improved from a relative rank of 49 in 2023 to 48 in 2024, holding to a 35-year average rank of 49th among the states on child well-being.
Louisiana has only 117 Foster Homes for Teenagers
Urgent: 06/21/2024 “According to DCFS, Louisiana has 4,147 children in the foster care system, 634 of those are between the ages of 15 and 17. However, there are only 117 homes willing to foster teenagers in the state. They believe this is due to misconceptions about teenagers in the foster care system.” Elizabeth Bourgeois, DCFS is experiencing a ‘critical’ shortage of foster homes for teenagers.
Louisiana Legislators Focusing on East Baton Rouge Family Court
New: 07/02/2024 Lawmakers seek probe of EBR Family Court by the justices of the Louisiana State Supreme Court, asking the higher court to study the East Baton Rouge (EBR) family court’s policies and decisions. State Senator Cleo Fields and State Rep. Kathy Edmonston have also asked the Louisiana State Supreme Court to give recommendations on how judges can better serve children and families. Their request is specific to East Baton Rouge, but the concerns they raise about family courts throughout Louisiana are likely to stir statewide attention.
Minimal Monitoring of Louisiana Special Education
05/15/2024 Louisiana Legislative Auditor finds Louisiana Department of Education is mostly failing to give proper oversight of Louisiana’s students with disabilities who receive special education services.
Read the full report at Risk-based Monitoring of Special Education Services, Louisiana Department of Education, Performance Audit Services, Issued May 15, 2024.
The Summary Report report outlines findings and explains that Louisiana Department of Education is slipping on a large number of children. “As of October 2022, 89,681 (13.1%) of 685,606 kindergarten through twelfth-grade (K-12) public-school students in Louisiana had a disability and were receiving special education services.”
News: 05/24/2024 Minimal monitoring for special education programs highlighted in state audit, by Allison Allsop, Louisiana Illuminator
Thousands of Louisiana students with disabilities have been in special education programs that have operated with minimal oversight for more than seven years, a new state audit reveals.
Louisiana To Detain Children in Converted Shipping Container Cells
Update: 05/16/2024 Read Louisiana Lacks Standards to Protect Children Held in Converted Shipping Containers: an Advocacy Paper on Behalf of Louisiana’s Children, released by Louisiana United Methodist Children and Family Services.
Louisiana United Methodist Children and Family Services is against the use of converted shipping containers for the detention and incarceration of children. If Louisiana permits their use, the state must promulgate Minimum Licensing Standards to ensure the safety and well-being of children.
That Louisiana would allow the unregulated use of converted shipping containers for detention, secure care, or prison cells for children seems surreal. Now, the safety and well-being of Louisiana’s children require that Louisiana promulgate Minimum Licensing Standards controlling the use of shipping containers converted into prison cells for children.
However, faced with too few beds and subpar facilities, authorities over children often do what they deem necessary in the name of expediency. Expedient authorities may harm children who are held in shipping containers converted, installed, used, and maintained without proper regulatory standards. Louisiana requires Minimum Licensing Standards that address the use of converted shipping containers for the detention and incarceration of Louisiana’s children.
Update: 05/03/2024 To prevent harm to children by the unregulated use of converted shipping containers, we submitted a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Children and Family Services, the Acting Deputy Secretary of the Office of Juvenile Justice, the Chairs of the Senate and House Health and Welfare Committees, and the Louisiana Office of Child Ombudsman asking the Department of Children and Family Services develop and promulgate Minimum Licensing Standards to regulate the use of converted shipping containers for juvenile detention centers, jails, prisons, and all other locations where children may be held. If these required Minimum Licensing Standards have not been promulgated before July 1, 2024, when the Office of Juvenile Justice becomes responsible for related licensing standards, we asked the Office of Juvenile Justice to complete the task with all haste.
Update: 04/23/2024 Minimum Licensing Standards are an essential element of Child Well-being Infrastructure. Without the protections that Minimum Licensing Standards offer children, providers and facilities may do willy-nilly what they wish, placing children at risk of physical and emotional injury. Louisiana has no Minimum Licensing Standards addressing the conversion of shipping containers into detention rooms.
The American Correctional Association has no accreditation standards that address the use of converted shipping containers for the detention or incarceration of juveniles. If the State of Louisiana will permit the detention and incarceration of children to take place in converted shipping containers, then Louisiana must first promulgate Minimum Licensing Standards to mitigate risks for the youth who will be detained in the converted containers by stipulating basic requirements to protect the health, safety, and well-being of children in judicial care.
The primary appeal of converted container prisons is that they are relatively inexpensive compared to brick-and-mortar construction. Because Louisiana has too few juvenile justice beds, container prisons have the added appeal of being a quick solution to needed bed space. However, allowing unfettered use of containers for juveniles will multiply problems for children in custody and the correctional and detention centers responsible for their well-being.
Minimum Licensing Standards for converted shipping container prisons for youth matter because they require detention centers and prisons to take care of the basics. Some of the questions that Minimum Licensing Standards answer include:
- Who certified the design?
- Will the individual cells be large enough?
- Will there be sufficient encumbered and unencumbered floor space?
- Is the ceiling high enough for safety? (Current licensing standards require 10 feet between the floor and ceiling in sleeping areas.)
- Will there be six individual cells with independent doors for each or six beds in one large room?
- What Louisiana standards for the care of children regulate the use of converted shipping containers?
- If the containers are recycled, who verifies and certifies that any toxic substances spilled in the containers during their use in shipping have been safely cleaned?
- If cutting torches are used in the remodeling, who will verify that all sharp edges have been removed?
- Will they be properly insulated against heat and cold?
- To prevent suicide by hanging or strangulation, will there be no ligature points?
- How will the cells control humidity and the resulting rust and corrosion?
- Will the converted containers be “wet” or “dry” (with or without toilets)?
- If wired for lights and electrical power, how will the risk of electrical shock be eliminated in a metal container?
- Will the metal containers be properly grounded and protected against lightning strikes?
- Will the containers’ ventilation, heating, and cooling be correct? (Even eight years after opening the container prison at Rimutaka, prison officials in New Zealand struggled to solve the problems of temperature – and New Zealand has a very mild climate compared to Louisiana’s summer heat.)
- What lessons have juvenile justice officials gleaned from the container prison installations of Camp Delta at Guantánamo Bay, the Rimutaka Prison Container Project in New Zealand, or the container prison at Canning Vale in Western Australia?
Update: 04/15/2024 Community rumors about Jackson Parish Jail’s conversion of shipping containers into detention cells for children were confirmed this week during the Baton Rouge Press Club meeting which featured Senator Regina Barrow and Louisiana’s State Child Ombudsman, Judge Kathleen Richey.
Recently, I made a tour of a facility in Jackson Parish where there are 52 children being held, and the plan that the parish has is to put these children into what are called “container units.” It is essentially a tractor-trailer unit, like the 18-wheelers, and the plan is to put six children per container. So I’m working on that.
“Kathleen Richey and State Senator Regina Barrow | Foster Children | Press Club | 04/15/2024” YouTube, uploaded by Louisiana Public Broadcasting, 15 April, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rQBOjyZc5w 09:44-10:09
Noted: 03/02/2024 In 2010, because Louisiana’s legislature desired “to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the children of this state who are placed in juvenile detention facilities,” the Legislature promulgated a state licensing and inspection law for juvenile detention centers (RS 15:1110) that requires the facilities to be licensed by DCFS.
After three years of work with stakeholders from OJJ and state public safety and corrections organizations to establish uniform licensing standards, on July 1, 2013, Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services began licensing our state’s juvenile justice facilities. The current standards, dated October 1, 2022, are available at Louisiana Juvenile Detention Standards.
Louisiana’s original Juvenile Detention Standards and none of the revisions since 2013 mention the use of shipping containers for children’s jail cells.
According to Falcon Structures on Container Dimensions, “Most commonly, containers are around 10-feet, 20-feet, or 40-feet long, each at around 8 feet wide. The height of each shipping container varies between standard height (8 feet 6 inches) and “high cube” (9 feet 6 inches), which are often used to increase storage space or create better air circulation.”
If the exterior height of a high cube is 9’6″, without serious remodeling, even the tallest standard shipping container does not meet Louisiana’s requirement that sleeping area “ceilings shall be a minimum of 10 feet from ceiling to floor.”
For additional background on using shipping containers as juvenile detention cells – or for prisons of any type – these two articles address questions raised by a new juvenile justice issue in Louisiana.
01/30/2018 Can Shipping Containers Hold Inmates? Yes But Also No, Correctional News
Shipping containers and semi-trailers have also caught on in the industry of incarceration: In at least five countries, shipping containers have held inmates—at times in defiance of basic jail standards.
01/9/2018 Inside a Prefab Missouri Jail Made of Semi-Trailers: Repurposed shipping containers and semi-trailers are finding a new life—as jails. by Daniel A. Gross, Bloomberg
Still, the semi-trailer jail appears to fall well short of several widely accepted standards. For example, the American Correctional Association, or ACA, tells sheriffs in its “Core Jail Standards” that all rooms should have windows that provide natural light—which, according to Arnott, the sleeping trailers lack. The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, have similar language. ACA guidelines also require that when jail cells house multiple inmates, they “provide 25 square feet of unencumbered space per occupant.” The sleeping trailers can house 36 inmates each, which translates into 12.5 square feet per inmate—much of which is taken up by bunk beds.
Finally, for Louisiana’s children, Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services may not have a chance to resolve this issue for the state’s juvenile detention facilities. You see, on July 1, 2024, the licensing authority over juvenile detention facilities in Louisiana will be transferred to the Office of Juvenile Justice pursuant to R.S. 15:1110.3. While OJJ will be required to maintain “Licensing standards for juvenile detention centers that comport with nationally recognized and accepted best practice standards,” Louisiana often fails to comport with national standards.
Louisiana has Standards to Maintain
Regarding standards for detention, during Richard Stalder’s tenure as Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, the Office of Juvenile Justice (“OYD” or “Office of Youth Development” at the time) declared that OJJ would only contract to place children in group homes and facilities that the American Correctional Association accredited. The standards of care stabilized and improved.
In 2023, the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice received the Golden Eagle award from the American Correctional Association in recognition of OJJ accrediting every component within their area of responsibility. According to the ACA, “the Golden Eagle award represents the highest commitment to excellence in correctional operations and the dedication … to enhancing public safety and the well-being of incarcerated individuals.”
Today, OJJ, its facilities, and contract providers are in a good position to focus on continued quality. Minimum Licensing Standards related to converted shipping containers are necessary to maintain the current quality.
On September 15, 2023, the Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) announced the transfer of all youth out of the West Feliciana Center for Youth, which was located on the grounds of Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
The youth were transferred from the repurposed death row at Angola to Jackson Parish Jail, which had opened a new juvenile justice facility in July 2023. OJJ reported the youth from Angola would be kept in Jackson Parish until the work on Swanson, a secure care facility in Monroe, is completed.
OJJ stated their officials would work with Jackson Parish officials to ensure that OJJ youth housed in Jackson Parish continued “to receive rehabilitative services and care that follows state and federal laws and regulations.”
The fact that Jackson Parish Jail intends to house youth in converted containers indicates that the new juvenile justice facility is full or will be.
Summer EBT is Alive and Child Advocacy is Effective.
For months, Louisiana has refused to participate in the USDA’s Summer EBT program which would provide funding for hungry children. Steady advocacy has kept the matter alive. Today, we learn that Governor Landry’s administration has reconsidered the earlier decision. Louisiana WILL participate in the Summer EBT program. Read the history of news and advocacy work to convince Louisiana to draw down these federal dollars for hungry children.
05/01/2024: Louisiana opts in to federal summer feeding program for children, by Johnette Magner, Louisiana Legislative Session | ktbs.com
Maternal Mortality
Louisiana has the highest maternal mortality rate in the nation. Sadly, and to our state’s discredit, 68% of Louisiana’s maternal deaths are deemed preventable. Many are eager to see what will come of the work of the Nursing Maternal Mortality and Preterm Births Task Force created by the Louisiana Legislature in Senate Concurrent Resolution 20: Task force approves recommendations to lawmakers to fight maternal mortality. The Task Force’s January 2024 report is complete in plenty of time for the Legislature’s 2024 Regular Session.
CRITICAL: 07/03/2023: Maternal Mortality Increases in Louisiana by 93%
Study shows sharp increases in maternal deaths over two decades: Some states see double the number of deaths among non-white populations by Kelcie Moseley-Morris, Louisiana Illuminator
The study, published in the Journal for the American Medical Association on Monday, showed five states with a 93% increase in Black maternal mortality rates: Louisiana, New Jersey, Georgia, Arkansas and Texas.
Why does this matter for Louisiana’s children?
- Maternal deaths have a profoundly negative effect on the overall well-being of families. The death of a young mother can create emotional, psychological, and financial burdens for the remaining family members.
- Newborns are at risk when maternal deaths occur. Without a mother’s care and support, infants face increased health risks and the baby’s risk of mortality increases.
- The health and opportunities of the mom’s surviving children are compromised. Children whose development is interrupted by grief experience a decline in their physical and mental health.
- Those for whom fiscal matters matter must understand that maternal deaths harm communities’ economic productivity. When mothers die, and families struggle to cope with the aftermath, loss of income can push families into poverty and chronic financial straights.
Finally, there is the simple fact that preventable deaths are wrong. We in Louisiana can and must do better in our efforts to reduce maternal deaths.
Summer EBT Update
Update: 04/13/2024: Louisiana’s decision to reject Summer EBT is not sitting well with some legislators. Stephanie Grace, staff columnist with The Advocate, describes how the Louisiana Legislature is taking a “fresh look” at the Governor’s decision to reject the federal funds for food for children: Stephanie Grace: Tide turning on summer food program.
02/28/2024: GOP governors face pressure campaign to feed kids in the summer: Louisiana and South Carolina are among the states where advocates are pushing hard to change their governor’s mind. – POLITICO
02/01/2024, 2:26 pm: We have an answer regarding the question, Will Louisiana Refuse Food for Hungry Children?
Yes. Louisiana is refusing to participate in Summer EBT. According to DCFS, Louisiana rejected the funds for hungry children and informed the USDA today that our children will not participate in the Summer EBT program, which would have provided food during the three Summer months to help feed nearly 600,000 children.
Dig deeper into Louisiana’s rejection of Summer EBT at Louisiana Rejected Summer EBT Food Funds for Children.
Childhood Immunizations and the Louisiana Legislature
If Louisiana relaxes requirements for childhood immunizations as some have suggested may happen, Louisiana may see headlines like this from The Hill, but in our local news: Measles outbreaks a wake-up call for the unvaccinated | The Hill
Provider Directories and Ghost Networks
Quotable: Regarding proposed legislation to crack down on inaccurate health care provider listings or “ghost networks,” and create stronger enforcement standards to protect those seeking mental health care, Senator Tina Smith said,
“By law, insurance companies must cover mental health just like they cover physical health, yet they’re still finding ways to dodge compliance and deny coverage,” (Senator) Smith said in a statement. “By setting stricter standards and holding insurance companies accountable for inaccurate listings, this legislation will help ensure people can access the mental health care coverage they are entitled to.”
Miscellanea
04/01/2024: Vaccine opt-out rate for Louisiana children skyrockets. Herd immunity at risk, experts say. by Emily Woodruff | Health care/Hospitals | NOLA.com
Parents opted out of vaccines for Louisiana’s kindergartners at the highest rate in at least a decade as several new bills to weaken vaccine requirements continue to advance in the Louisiana Legislature.
03/03/2024: Louisiana’s watchdog for kids blocked from getting records, by Andrea Gallo, NOLA.com
Learn about Louisiana’s Children in the News!