BATON ROUGE — Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration ended contracts with one of the six companies that provide Medicaid insurance in Louisiana after initially saying it would end contracts with two companies.

Seth Gold, Louisiana’s Medicaid director, sent short letters last week to the CEOs of Aetna Better Health of Louisiana and UnitedHealthCare of Louisiana announcing their contract extensions with the state had been dropped for 2026. WBRZ obtained copies of the letters Tuesday from the Louisiana Department of Health.

“LDH will begin the transition process of moving your Medicaid members to other contracted Medicaid Managed Care Plans for a Jan. 1 effective date,” Gold wrote in the letters to the companies dated Dec. 2.

However, on Tuesday, Gold sent out a new letter saying that Louisiana will renew its contract with Aetna for 2026.

"Originally, Aetna was notified that their contract would not be renewed beyond the current contract expiration date, but after discussions between the State of Louisiana and Aetna, we notified them today that we will renew their contract as a Medicaid Managed Care Organization (MCO) for the State of Louisiana for 2026," a spokesperson with the LDH said.

The spokesperson also said the department is making preparations to distribute current membership for UnitedHealthcare participants to other plans.