<p><font color="#333333" face="Benton Sans, Arial, sans-serif"><span><b>Opinion by Scott Martin, M.D.</b></span></font></p>
<p><font color="#333333" face="Benton Sans, Arial, sans-serif"><span><b>I had the great misfortune to begin my career as a physician practicing in Louisiana without the initial expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. &nbsp;Although many hundreds of thousands of people would have benefited significantly from the expansion, the gubernatorial politics of the time were firmly set against it.&nbsp;</b></span></font></p>
<p><font color="#333333" face="Benton Sans, Arial, sans-serif"><span><b>Instead I spent my three years of internal medicine residency in a busy, New Orleans hospital system routinely dealing with the uninsured. My patient population ran the spectrum from homeless schizophrenics and shackled prisoners to unemployed pipe-guys and working single mothers. We treated all comers, often dealing with a shocking level of poverty and disenfranchisement.</b></span></font></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/06/medicaid_expansion.html">MORE&gt;&gt;</a></p>
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