Despite Gov. Bobby Jindal’s focus on changing K-12 and state retirement plans, in terms of importance, nothing matches the changes currently taking place in the state’s public health-care system. The Jindal administration is challenged on two fronts, as it privatizes a large part of the Medicaid system while LSU hospitals start closing clinics and laying off hundreds of employees to meet steep midyear budget cuts. A new era of Medicaid began this week, as 180,000 patients, mostly children and pregnant women in the New Orleans region and Florida Parishes, started seeing doctors organized in networks that are administered by five insurance companies. Right behind, the Baton Rouge and Acadiana region begins its two-month enrollment period this week for 300,000 patients, to be followed shortly by north Louisiana, under an ambitious implementation schedule to be completed statewide by June. Meanwhile, fewer health-care services will be available from LSU-run hospitals and clinics under a budget-cutting plan to be presented to the LSU Board of Supervisors. LSU System Vice President Dr. Fred Cerise is scheduled to outline $29 million in reductions affecting programs, and up to 650 staff jobs in the Health Care Services Division. On the chopping block is a north Baton Rouge clinic, which sees 5,000 area children.
—A key tenet of Gov. Jindal’s proposed changes to the state employees retirement system is a three percentage-point increase in workers’ contributions that was offered last year but failed. What will be different this year? Jim Tucker is no longer in the House. The former speaker derailed the contribution increase bill last year when he ruled it a payroll tax, requiring two-thirds approval, effectively killing the measure. Tucker’s rationale was that the state was decreasing its contribution by that amount and shifting the money to other areas of the budget. Rep. Kevin Pearson, R-Slidell, doubts new Speaker Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles, would take the same position. Pearson wouldn’t.
They said it: “Contractors are no more than vipers.” —John Pourciau, retired DHH information technology director, on an administration proposal to contract out IT jobs, in The Advocate
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at Lapolitics.com)
