Man with a plan: Sen. Bill Cassidy is stepping up efforts to be a leader in the Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, USA Today reports. Last week, the freshman senator met with the conservative Freedom Caucus to pitch his plan—Patient Freedom Act of 2017—to replace the federal health care law. Later that day, Cassidy was on the Senate floor touting the plan. Cassidy has promoted the plan to governors and administration officials, at a health care conference and in interviews with reporters. His focus is lobbying his colleagues, but he will have hard time selling it to Democrats, who say they won’t even consider a repeal measure. President Donald Trump said this weekend of a replacement plan: “Maybe it’ll take till sometime into next year.” Read the full story.
A new era: Banking veteran Carl J. Chaney has been appointed as chief executive office of First National Bank. Chaney will succeed Hermann “Buck” Moyse, III, who has served as interim chief executive officer of First NBC Bank and First NBC Bank Holding Company. Chaney has more than 30 years of experience in the banking and financial services sector. First NBC entered into a definitive agreement with Whitney Bank to sell it approximately $1.3 billion in loans and nine First NBC Bank branches. The terms of the transaction will provide First NBC with an estimated premium of $44 million and total cash liquidity in excess of $200 million. Read the full announcement.
Pond production: It looks like the August flood and slow local economy won’t have a big impact on the crawfish supply and demand in Acadiana. The Advertiser reports most Acadiana crawfish farmers are reporting healthy supplies in their ponds for this time of the year. LSU AgCenter crawfish researcher Mark Shirley says there are only a few ponds that are not producing crawfish that could be related to flooding issues, but this year he’s seeing a few more acres of production from rice farmers. This could more than make up for any loss of production relating to the flood, Shirley says. The crawfish also are a bit larger than usual for this time of year because of the mild winter. Read the full story.
