After its first meeting this week, some members of the Postsecondary Education Review Commission concluded that it will take a strong chairman to steer the panel toward a meaty discussion of significantly altering the higher ed landscape, given the presence on the commission of four non-voting members representing the college systems. The strongest proponent of major changes could be the governor’s appointee, former LSU chancellor Jim Wharton. When the daylong meeting ended, Wharton distributed to members a five-page memo on specific cost reduction strategies, including cutting graduate programs, raising admission standards and trimming administrative positions and athletic programs. The group will elect a chairman at its next meeting, as yet unannounced.
— Qualifying ends today in what looks to be a two-man race that could be neck-and-neck between District Judge Marcus Clark and Jimmy Faircloth. The election is Oct. 17. A Southern Media poll done for Faircloth shows Clark leading only 29% to 27% percent, with nearly half undecided. Five hundred likely voters were interviewed August 3-6.
— With expansion of Medicaid bound to be part of any healthcare reform that Congress passes, Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine already is back at the drawing board devising a new way for the state to provide more health coverage for poor citizens. Late last year, the state applied to the federal government to use an expansion of Medicaid benefits as a means of paying back $771 million in over payments that are due. But with all the major healthcare bills under consideration raising Medicaid eligibility to 100% to 133% of poverty, Levine says that would supersede the state’s application. So he’s contemplating submitting a new waiver that might include continuing spending on primary care clinics beyond the three-year federal grants for hurricane recovery that expire next year.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
