Vote on Jindal’s health privatization plan postponed

Lawmakers scrapped a vote today on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposal to hire a private company to manage a state employee health insurance plan, raising questions about whether it had run into trouble. The delay was announced a day before the scheduled hearing of the House and Senate budget committees to review the proposed contract between the Office of Group Benefits and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Fannin says he sought a meeting delay because lawmakers received the contract two days before the hearing and wanted more time to review the lengthy document. “Members asked us for some more time to get to look at the contract. It was 70 to 80 pages. I thought that was a reasonable request. I wanted my staff to look at it,” he says. Critics of the plan have said they think Jindal didn’t have enough support for passage. Jindal wants to hire Blue Cross to run an insurance plan in the Office of Group Benefits that covers more than 62,000 employees, retirees and their dependents, called a PPO. The outsourcing, if approved, would take effect Jan. 1 and eliminate 177 full-time government jobs. “I would suspect that it will be a close vote,” says Fannin, D-Jonesboro. “And I think the votes were there. But I don’t think it hurts to give folks a little extra time to look at it.” The Associated Press has the full story here.