Perception and reality in Louisiana Politics

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

PERCEPTION AND REALITY IN LOUISIANA POLITICS

In 2008, Louisiana rode the bubble. A new Governor and a cadre of other new public officials were ready to put the Katrina mentality behind, and begin the process of bringing Louisiana fully into the 21st century. There was a perception, stirred by continuing editorials in the state’s daily newspapers, that major changes were on the way. The word "change" was a bellwether in the Bayou state well in advance of the new president making this his mantra in his quest for the White House. But in Louisiana, the perception of reality is often not reality itself, but our own version of it.

Few governors have come into office with the momentum of Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal. He followed a lackluster Governor damaged by her handling of Hurricane Katrina. Jindal effused with energy and new ideas on the state level that corresponded to the same image gushed by our new President on the national front. He was the young, ethic alternative in the GOP that was made up of older white guys with few new ideas. Bobby Jindal’s timing was just right. But that was then.

Louisiana was initially considered insulated form the national financial crisis due to high oil process and the billions being poured into the state for Katrina rebuilding. But the price of oil has plummeted from one hundred fifty dollars a barrel to a current thirty four dollar low. And the flow of hurricane recovery money has dwindled considerably. If there is any doubt about the state’s precarious economic condition, one only has to scan the daily newspaper headlines.
“Our Oil Drunk, Our Hangover (Jindal’s Folly)” Morning Advocate-Dec. 28th.

“Greed Came Home to Roost for La. Public Officials” The American Press- Dec, 29th

“Higher Ed. Ranking predict Dismal Future in La.” Shreveport Times-Dec. 28th

“Tax breaks Worsen budget Shortfalls in La.” The Associated Press-Dec. 29th

The financial problems are compounded by just released census figures showing Louisiana to be in last place nationally in population gain. Not only is the state in last place among all states including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in population gain, Louisiana is only one of two of the 52 states and territories to lose population.

So the bubble has burst, the rosy view of perception is in the tank, and reality has set in. Reasonable projections show a $1.2 billon drop in revenue in the coming year, with well over $2 billion dollars needed just to keep the current ship of state a float. This is the best case scenario and does not take into consideration further drops in oil prices (this has been predicted) and possibly more plant closings and further layoffs (some 20,000 jobs lost in the past year.)

Ethics reform has been the selling point ballyhooed by conservative columnists nationwide in pitching accolades at the Governor. But the consensus by knowledgeable observers her at home is that, at best, any changes were cosmetic and amounted to “ethics lite.” Legislators continue to be wined and dined at top restaurants. The only ethics opinion of note to come out in the past six months is to prohibit an assistant librarian in St. Tammany Parish from receiving Christmas cookies form a student who uses the library.

The Governor and the legislature are at a crossroads. There are a host of real, not perceived problems out there that have festered for years. Revamping the healthcare system, making tough decisions to consolidate the huge overlap in higher education, rebuilding a crumbling highway infrastructure. And realistic job training in areas that have potential. Spending $600, 000 to study building an auto manufacturing plant in the state, a contract that was just awarded by the Dept. of Economic Development, makes little sense when similar plants are closing down in other parts of the country.

Jindal will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina on Feb. 4th to speak to the John Locke Foundation’s 19th anniversary celebration. It’s a prestigious event for conservatives, with former speakers that include conservative columnists George Will and Peggy Noonan, former independent counsel Ken Starr and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. The announcement came in this week’s Raleigh newspaper. In an adjoining column, there was a lengthy article about the successes of recent North Carolina Governors in developing new industry and creating new jobs. The point was made as to how hard the present and former governors were working to create these successes. They had tangible results.

If the Governor wants to consider a presidential bid in the future, the best thing he can do is show tangible results at home. Not perceptions, but a concrete game plan with specific, definable and obtainable goals. He can take all the credit, and if his national stature continues to rise then the national ambitions will come. But he and the legislature have a big, no an overwhelming job, to do right here in Louisiana.
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“Some people see the cup as half empty. Some people see the cup as half full. I see the cup as too large.” George Carlin

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s weekly column appears in a number of newspapers and websites throughout the State of Louisiana. You can read Jim’s Blog, and take his weekly poll, plus read his columns going back to the fall of 2002 by going to his own website at http://www.jimbrownla.com.
Jim also has a new book out on his views of Louisiana. You can read about it and order it by going to www.jimbrownla.com. .
Jim’s radio show on WRNO (995 fm) from New Orleans can be heard each Sunday, from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm.

Major Insurance Scandals Brewing in Louisiana

Thursday, December 11th, 21008
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

LOUISIANA CITIZENS INSURANCE SCANDALS
CONTINUE TO GROW
A year ago, it would have been hard to imagine that conditions at Citizens Property Insurance Company could get any worse. The state created and state run company was in debt by over $1 billion. The Rouge Business Report called Citizens the biggest financial disaster in the state's history. But never underestimate the ability of some state agencies to make a dysfunctional situation go from bad to worse.

The Board governing Citizens, that includes statewide elected officials, has shown little oversight of the Companies’ spending and management decisions, sparking not only criticism from the Legislative Auditor in Louisiana, but also provoking major investigations by both state and federal law-enforcement agencies.

The latest Citizens scandal boiled over last week when the former CEO was indicted with 14 counts of theft by fraud, filled with allegations that he spent more than $285,000 on questionable expenses including airline tickets, meals, retirement gifts and stays at lavish hotels. But his attorney said last week that his client is being singled out and “used as a scapegoat" in the poor management of the insurance company. Sources close to the investigation seemed to agree, saying that the latest indictments are just "the tip of the iceberg."

The whole controversy has significantly elevated due to the resistance of Louisiana's Insurance Commissioner to turning over some 2000 e-mails requested by the Legislative Auditor’s office. The Louisiana Insurance Department is arguing that the information requested by the auditor is proprietary, and it cannot allow this information to be made public. Such an argument is spurious at best, since, by law, the Auditor’s office has the same confidentiality restrictions that apply to the Commissioner of Insurance. Questions are being raised as to why the insurance department has been so defensive in turning over these 2000 e-mails requested.

Rumors are rampant throughout the Department of Insurance that many e-mails are "extremely personal" in nature with risqué and bawdy language flowing freely. So some department employees are concerned that the Auditor’ office will weed out these salacious e-mails to show a pattern of employees abusing the use of state owned computers for matters of a personal nature. But that's not what has piqued the interest of the outside offices investigating ties between Citizens and the Insurance Department.

The focus of investigators is not on the titillating e-mails, but rather on the number of lengthy mundane transmissions involving the rates that are charged to policyholders by Citizens. By law, the state run company must charge a rate that is 10% higher than the rates being charged by companies in the private sector. Also by state law, the property rates charged by Citizens must be "actuarially sound" and be adequate enough to keep the company on solid financial footing. When Citizens takes huge losses, as it did following Hurricane Katrina, the rate charged to policyholders has to be raised to keep the company from going broke.

Actuaries who studied the financial data of Citizens determined last spring that a 31% rate increase would be required to keep the company on sound financial footing and in line with state law. But with no explanation, the final rate approved by the Department of Insurance turned out to be only 6%. A long explanation would be required to fully understand the process. But the bottom line is this. Was there price-fixing involved? Was there a possible conspiracy with certain parties conspiring with Citizens to keep rates artificially low? Was the recently indicted ex-CEO part of any effort to fix rates that would benefit certain insurance companies that use Citizens? These are all questions that are being examined at the present time. Investigators feel that the several thousand e-mails being demanded by the Auditor’s Office may be a key as to whether any criminal activity actually took place.

Citizens Insurance Company was a disaster waiting to happen from its very inception. Created by the Louisiana Legislature at the behest of the Insurance Department, Citizens had to be one of the most poorly constructed business operations ever conceived by a state legislature. The company was broke from day one, with no capital and surplus made available to get Citizens started on sound financial footing. It became obvious early on that no one at Citizens had any idea of how to run an insurance company.

And a mother’s mantra of any successful insurance company is to have adequate reinsurance. Have a safety net in case a storm like Katrina comes along. The legislature and the insurance department failed to require that Citizens have sufficient reinsurance, and that single negligent decision stuck every policy holder in the state for a bill that will far exceed $1 billion. In virtually every standard that would be required of any private insurance company, Citizens failed miserably.

Citizens was an inauspicious cataclysm from day one. Now, with the ex CEO under indictment and an investigation underway of whether or not there was a conspiracy to fix property insurance rates, the Citizens debacle continues to get even worse. The best solution would be to shut the company down completely. At a minimum, Citizens needs major restructuring with more requirements for both legislative and auditor oversight.

The auto companies and key financial institutions that will receive a federal bailout often showed gross incompetence in how their businesses were run. But if one is looking for an even worst recipe for disaster, Citizens is heading toward the record book of being in a class all to its own.
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“I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.”
Ashleigh Brilliant
Peace and Justice
Jim Brown
Jim Brown’s weekly column appears in a number of newspapers and websites throughout the State of Louisiana. You can read Jim’s Blog, and take his weekly poll, plus read his columns going back to the fall of 2002 by going to his own website at http://www.jimbrownla.com/.
Jim also has a new book out on his views of Louisiana. You can read about it and order it by going to http://www.jimbrownla.com/. .
Jim’s radio show on WRNO (995 fm) from New Orleans can be heard each Sunday, from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm.

Major Louisiana Healthcare Problems

Thursday, December 3rd, 2008
Baton Rouge, Louisiana


BOTTOM OF THE BARREL
HEALTHWISE IN LOUISIANA


Louisiana has the dubious honor of being named this week as the least healthiest state in the nation. The negative recognition was announced in the 2008 health rankings just released by United Health Foundation. It really wasn’t any surprise. That’s because the state has held the bottom sport for fifteen of the past eighteen years. Every now and then, the Bayou State slips up to 49th. But it again has fallen to the bottom of the barrel.

There was an assumption that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal would make healthcare reform and expansion his top priority when first coming into office. After all, he had cut his political teeth as Louisiana’s healthcare czar in his late 20s when former Gov. Mike Foster taped him to head up the massive bureaucracy of the Department of Health and Hospitals. After Foster left office, Jindal headed to Washington at the behest of former La. US Senator John Breaux to direct a major health care commission. But since taking office as Governor, Jindal has downplayed healthcare as a front burner issue.

Jindal’s pick to head up the state health agency, Alan Levine, was brought in from Florida with the task of both expanding and improving the present delivery system. But the financial dragon of continuing cost increases has caused him to play defense, with little chance to be proactive in widening the health delivery net to over one million Louisianans who don’t qualify for Medicaid, yet cannot afford health insurance under the present system.

Last week, Levine spoke publicly about financial woes enwrapping the system, and called his headaches the “Four Horseman of the Healthcare Apocalypse. His list included the rising cost of the state Medicaid program, the growing expense at the state’s public hospitals for the uninsured, more money in New Orleans to replace Big Charity, and a debt of over $771 million dollars the feds say Louisiana was overpaid. So the focus is really not on creative healthcare, but basically it’s about paying the bills due. It’s all about money.

The focus is on paying for previous and current programs, with little thought of addressing the needs of hundreds of thousands of Louisianans who do not qualify for either Medicaid or Medicare, and who are either self employed or who work for small businesses that cannot afford to buy a traditional health insurance policy. The Louisiana Legislature has exasperated the problem by requiring that every health insurance policy sold include a lengthy list of mandated benefits, making the average family policy just too expensive for many citizens throughout the state.

The average health insurance policy cost for a middle-aged adult in Louisiana is over $5,000 a year. This cost is out of the range of well over one million Louisianans who do not qualify for other governmental programs. So what can be done? A national health-insurance solution would be best. But unless the new President can confect a consensus for a national plan, the state may and should consider going its own way.

Any Louisiana plan will need limitations. It can’t be gold platted. A basic Chevy, not a Cadillac. Such a plan would need to be basic with shared costs. And do not do what has traditionally been the norm in Louisiana of defining what benefits should be included. Go the other way of first seeing how much those buying and paying for such a policy are able to pay? Then you could determine just how much healthcare could be bought.

Such any idea is not new. Tennessee implemented a similar plan a few years ago with a basic policy costing an average of $150 dollars a month. And the cost is split three ways, between the individual policy holder, the employer and the state. Each puts up 50 dollars. Blue Cross in Tennessee agreed to underwrite the plan through competitive bidding.

When limited plans were discussed in the past, the focus to keep coverage less expensive was to have high deductibles, often requiring a person to spend a thousand dollars or more before the plan kicks in. But I’ve learned during my time in public life and now in the private sector on the radio that Louisianans are interested in help with the basics: a doctor’s visit, prescriptions and a short hospital stay. Such a plan would no doubt be caped in the $25,000 range. No catastrophic coverage. Not perfect, but a good beginning.

The system right now is keeping, financially, the healthcare system’s head barely above the water. But the Governor and the Legislature will be doing a disservice to over one million Louisianans if they do not give serious attention to structuring an affordable basic plan that will be a tool in obtaining the goal of much more affordable healthcare. Staying number 50 in the nation year after year should be unacceptable, and a wake up call for a simple but doable alternate. Louisiana citizens deserve better choices.

*******
“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.” ~Doug Larson

Peace and Justice.

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s weekly column appears in a number of newspapers and websites throughout the State of Louisiana. You can read Jim’s Blog, and take his weekly poll, plus read his columns going back to the fall of 2002 by going to his own website at http://www.jimbrownla.com/.
Jim also has a new book out on his views of Louisiana. You can read about it and order it by going to http://www.jimbrownla.com/. .
Jim’s radio show on WRNO (995 fm) from New Orleans can be heard each Sunday, from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm.


Thursday, December 3rd, 2008
Baton Rouge, Louisiana


BOTTOM OF THE BARREL
HEALTHWISE IN LOUISIANA


Louisiana has the dubious honor of being named this week as the least healthiest state in the nation. The negative recognition was announced in the 2008 health rankings just released by United Health Foundation. It really wasn’t any surprise. That’s because the state has held the bottom sport for fifteen of the past eighteen years. Every now and then, the Bayou State slips up to 49th. But it again has fallen to the bottom of the barrel.

There was an assumption that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal would make healthcare reform and expansion his top priority when first coming into office. After all, he had cut his political teeth as Louisiana’s healthcare czar in his late 20s when former Gov. Mike Foster taped him to head up the massive bureaucracy of the Department of Health and Hospitals. After Foster left office, Jindal headed to Washington at the behest of former La. US Senator John Breaux to direct a major health care commission. But since taking office as Governor, Jindal has downplayed healthcare as a front burner issue.

Jindal’s pick to head up the state health agency, Alan Levine, was brought in from Florida with the task of both expanding and improving the present delivery system. But the financial dragon of continuing cost increases has caused him to play defense, with little chance to be proactive in widening the health delivery net to over one million Louisianans who don’t qualify for Medicaid, yet cannot afford health insurance under the present system.

Last week, Levine spoke publicly about financial woes enwrapping the system, and called his headaches the “Four Horseman of the Healthcare Apocalypse. His list included the rising cost of the state Medicaid program, the growing expense at the state’s public hospitals for the uninsured, more money in New Orleans to replace Big Charity, and a debt of over $771 million dollars the feds say Louisiana was overpaid. So the focus is really not on creative healthcare, but basically it’s about paying the bills due. It’s all about money.

The focus is on paying for previous and current programs, with little thought of addressing the needs of hundreds of thousands of Louisianans who do not qualify for either Medicaid or Medicare, and who are either self employed or who work for small businesses that cannot afford to buy a traditional health insurance policy. The Louisiana Legislature has exasperated the problem by requiring that every health insurance policy sold include a lengthy list of mandated benefits, making the average family policy just too expensive for many citizens throughout the state.

The average health insurance policy cost for a middle-aged adult in Louisiana is over $5,000 a year. This cost is out of the range of well over one million Louisianans who do not qualify for other governmental programs. So what can be done? A national health-insurance solution would be best. But unless the new President can confect a consensus for a national plan, the state may and should consider going its own way.

Any Louisiana plan will need limitations. It can’t be gold platted. A basic Chevy, not a Cadillac. Such a plan would need to be basic with shared costs. And do not do what has traditionally been the norm in Louisiana of defining what benefits should be included. Go the other way of first seeing how much those buying and paying for such a policy are able to pay? Then you could determine just how much healthcare could be bought.

Such any idea is not new. Tennessee implemented a similar plan a few years ago with a basic policy costing an average of $150 dollars a month. And the cost is split three ways, between the individual policy holder, the employer and the state. Each puts up 50 dollars. Blue Cross in Tennessee agreed to underwrite the plan through competitive bidding.

When limited plans were discussed in the past, the focus to keep coverage less expensive was to have high deductibles, often requiring a person to spend a thousand dollars or more before the plan kicks in. But I’ve learned during my time in public life and now in the private sector on the radio that Louisianans are interested in help with the basics: a doctor’s visit, prescriptions and a short hospital stay. Such a plan would no doubt be caped in the $25,000 range. No catastrophic coverage. Not perfect, but a good beginning.

The system right now is keeping, financially, the healthcare system’s head barely above the water. But the Governor and the Legislature will be doing a disservice to over one million Louisianans if they do not give serious attention to structuring an affordable basic plan that will be a tool in obtaining the goal of much more affordable healthcare. Staying number 50 in the nation year after year should be unacceptable, and a wake up call for a simple but doable alternate. Louisiana citizens deserve better choices.

*******
“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.” ~Doug Larson

Peace and Justice.

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s weekly column appears in a number of newspapers and websites throughout the State of Louisiana. You can read Jim’s Blog, and take his weekly poll, plus read his columns going back to the fall of 2002 by going to his own website at http://www.jimbrownla.com/.
Jim also has a new book out on his views of Louisiana. You can read about it and order it by going to http://www.jimbrownla.com/. .
Jim’s radio show on WRNO (995 fm) from New Orleans can be heard each Sunday, from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm.