Leadership change: Steve Sellers, CEO of Baton Rouge-based Premier Health, has been named the newly-elected president of the Urgent Care Association of America board of directors. Sellers previously served as UCAOA president-elect in 2015 and was the board’s secretary. He will lead the board as new competition arises in the health care industry, changes are made in reimbursements and as patient confusion arises from the number of outpatient healthcare options available. Headquartered in Baton Rouge, Premier Health has 40 urgent care clinics through multiple joint-venture relationships with physicians and health systems. The announcement regarding Sellers’ role was made at the beginning of the UCAOA 2016 Spring Convention, which began Sunday and is scheduled to conclude Wednesday in Orlando, Florida.
Put on pause: A building boom planned to expand and improve Louisiana’s community college campuses is being put on hold by Gov. John Bel Edwards as part of his push to rein in state construction spending. The Associated Press reports more than half the projects on the $280 million list for the Louisiana Community and Technical College System won’t be completed for now. Instead, they’ll be stalled for an unknown period while the state digs out of its deep budget troubles. Louisiana faces stricter limits for the next few years on how much money it can borrow for construction projects because of its financial problems. Edwards has decided he wants to steer the limited money available mainly to port improvements, roadwork and a backlog of deferred maintenance on state-owned and college campus buildings. Read the full story.
Tax break: An estimated 45.3% of American households—roughly 77.5 million—will pay no federal individual income tax, according to data for the 2015 tax year from the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington-based research group. MarketWatch reports that Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, explains that roughly half of the 45% pay no federal income tax because they have no taxable income while the other half gets enough tax breaks to erase their tax liability. However, this does not mean the group won’t pay state taxes. And despite the fact that rich people paying little in income taxes makes plenty of headlines, this is the exception to the rule: The top 1% of taxpayers pay a higher effective income tax rate than any other group of around 23%, according to a report released by the Tax Policy Center in 2014—nearly seven times higher than those in the bottom 50%. Read the full story.
