When the state starts the process of turning over $2 billion in public money to private insurance companies to execute the state’s Medicaid program, the reins will be largely in the hands of Gov. Bobby Jindal — and the Legislature won’t see much in the way of the program’s details or potential complications.
A compelling column published in The Baton Rouge Business Report reveals that the new Coordinated Care Networks system, the braindchild of Jindal that dates back to his state Department of Health and Hospitals days, will entrust the health care of 850,000 Louisiana residents (mostly children) to five private insurance companies. The administration has estimated $135 million in annual savings through privatization, which begins early next year. Eventually, the state’s 1.2 million Medicaid recipients will all be managed by the private sector.
There were very few, if any, legislative gadflies that stood in Jindal’s way when he pushed for his plan’s passage. As The Business Report explains below, one lawmaker who criticized the plan was silenced by the legislative process. And when the Legislature approved a bill that would allow the state to terminate the private health care contracts after three years if the program wasn’t delivering, Jindal vetoed it:
Ordinary citizens who pay for part or all of their health insurance have to deal with private companies, so why should Medicaid patients be different? Lawmakers may have accepted that reasoning, if they were asked, but they weren’t.
In the 2010 session, one outspoken critic of privatization, Sen. Joe McPherson, D-Woodworth, had a provision inserted in the appropriations bill in committee to require legislative approval of a final healthcare plan.
When the bill reached the floor, a large set of what were supposed to be clean-up, technical amendments were offered for one up-or-down vote. According to Senate minutes, McPherson complained that, on short notice, there was no way of knowing what was in the many pages of amendments. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, assured him all the changes were technical.
After the bill passed, McPherson discovered that in that stack of allegedly technical changes, his amendment requiring legislative approval had been deleted and one sentence was added, authorizing the administration to establish and write rules for “Coordinated Care Networks” for Medicaid.
Privatization marches forward, and the babies will lead the way.
One hopes for the best for them. The likelihood, however, of the sweeping transition taking place without complications, mistakes and unintended consequences is as remote as no political indictments being handed down in the next year.
Read more here.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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