With no elections in 2013 and not much in the way of bold new initiatives put forward by anybody, the state’s agenda for the new year is crowded nonetheless with the unfinished business of 2012. Gov. Bobby Jindal may not be messing with the details, as he will be flying about the country a lot again this year, this time as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. But how he and his administration complete what they started last year in education and health care, as well as how they come to terms with nagging budget woes, largely will frame Jindal’s overall record as governor. After this year, if not this year, it will grow harder and harder to get anything big done. Getting the voucher expansion and tenure changes through the Legislature proved to be much easier than getting them out of court. Whatever the final outcomes of legal challenges from teachers unions and school boards, Jindal’s voucher program, began in 2008, will live on. At stake is who will pay for it. The sweeping, rapid transformation of the state hospital system was not on last year’s agenda, until Congress put it there in June by slashing Medicaid funding to the state. That forced the administration into an ongoing scramble to piece together partnerships by which private and community hospitals would run the 10 LSU hospitals across the state. Three tentative deals have been announced, and more are in the works. But to be resolved is how the new partners will be paid for treating uninsured patients living near the poverty line. Read the full column here.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
