Monday, December 16th, 2024
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

HEALTHCARE IN LOUISIANA AND THE U.S. A REAL MESS!

A vigilante killing takes place in New York City, and the shooter is called by some as a hero. The story of this murder has been covered nationally and internationally for over a week. Unfortunately, this tragedy has evolved into not the killing of a single individual, but a reflection of the major crisis that is directed at the healthcare industry in America today.

Healthcare companies are under assault, and for good reason. I dealt with any number of claims against healthcare companies during the time I served as Louisiana’s insurance commissioner throughout the 1990s. Back then, health insurance companies seldom rejected health related claims. And if a claim was rejected, my office rigorously investigated. United healthcare, the company that was headed up by the recent shooting victim Brian Thompson, only rejected 1.1% of filed claims 20 years ago. In a recent national survey, conducted by insurance consultant Premier, major companies like United healthcare are refusing to pay on average 15% or more of claims that are filed.

Under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) of 2010, the federal Department of Health and Human Resources is directed to study and monitor claim results of individual companies, and make this information public. But they don’t do it. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that some insurance companies deny almost half of all claims. Which companies? You can’t find out. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, there’s been a failure to follow the law, and the public is left in the dark.

If your healthcare claim is denied, you have the right to appeal. But consumers rarely do. It’s just too cumbersome. You spent hours on the telephone with the healthcare company, fill out numerous forms, have to make your doctor fill out copious correspondence, and the average claimant just gets bogged down in tons of paperwork. If you appeal, yes it makes a difference. Kaiser reports that 41% of claims that have initially been denied are reversed on appeal. What does this tell us? Way too many claims are being denied in the first place.

The bottom line is that there is too much coziness between federal agencies that are supposed to be monitoring healthcare results and the healthcare companies they are supposed to oversee. And you and I pay the price. Unfortunately, state regulators are not doing any better job. Insurance commissioners supposedly collect data of claims have been denied, but with only a couple of exceptions, these regulators do not make this information public. Connecticut and Vermont do, but Louisiana keeps it hidden.

Back in the 90s, I proposed and was successful in getting the legislature to pass laws that outlawed insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Louisiana was the first state in the country to do so, and other states quickly followed. In addition, I created a healthcare bureau of last resort. If a person was not qualified to receive healthcare coverage through Medicare or Medicaid, and could not afford buying it in the private sector, they could turn to the Department of Insurance program that created an agency of last resort. The insurance cost was a little higher than what the average citizen paid, but at least there was a program available to help those who could not find any health insurance.

Here’s what healthcare researcher, The Commonwealth Fund reports about the state of our healthcare in America today. “People in the United States experience the worst health outcomes overall of any high-income nation. Americans are more likely to die younger, and from avoidable causes, than residents of peer countries. The U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest death rates for avoidable or treatable conditions, the highest maternal and infant mortality, and among the highest suicide rates.”

Bottom line? Americans are being dramatically shortchanged in terms of the healthcare they are receiving, the quality of the healthcare, the skyrocketing cost of health insurance, and regulators who allow healthcare companies to deny legitimate claims. The system is a real mess. And it’s a nationwide problem. Here’s hoping President Trump and his healthcare secretary pick Robert Kennedy will put finding a way for affordable healthcare on their front burner agenda.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.

DONALD TRUMP, JESSE JAMES AND REDNECK LOUISIANA!

December 9^th, 2024

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

DONALD TRUMP, JESSE JAMES AND REDNECK LOUISIANA!

 

The tough guy outlaw image.  That’s what President Trump has often portrayed himself. He said on a number of occasions that he has been investigated “more than Jesse James,” and call the famous outlaw “a great bank robber.”  There is no doubt that Jesse James and the James gang were colorful characters who liked to think of themselves as Robin Hoods that robbed Banks of the rich guys and spread it among the poor Missouri dirt farmers.

 

And would you believe that my grandmother, who was delightfully named Sweetie Pearl Brown, claimed to me that she had met Jesse himself? Sweetie Pearl was about the most entertaining person I ever knew. She relished telling me yarns about growing up in the Missouri foothills of Clay County.  She swore to me (and I believe her) that her father, William Hull, hid out Jesse James and his gang as the bank robbers crisscrossed the Midwest.

 

 According to Sweetie Pearl, she would hear the James gang come riding up to the Hull farm in the middle of the night, enter their family cabin, and lie down on the floor in front of the fire to sleep a spell.  After they left in the early morning hours, Sweetie would see the spur marks in the wood floor. The gang members kept their boots on in case a quick getaway became necessary.

 

She swore that Jesse James never was killed by one of his own men. This was all a ruse, so she said, to get the lawmen off his tracks. The official version in the history books is that gang member Robert Ford shot Jesse in the back for a big reward in 1882 in St. Joseph, Missouri.  Not true, said Sweetie Pearl. She swears the Robin Hood-like folk hero made his way down to northeast Louisiana and spent some ten years in the small community of Floyd in West Carroll Parish, about two miles south of Poverty Point.

 

I somewhat doubted her version until I read a story in the Bastrop Enterprise dated June 23, 1938, about how Jesse and some of his gang holed up in northeast Louisiana for over ten years after his reported death. One local account is from a Mrs. W. A. Ober, who told the paper: “It happened on a boat on Bayou Bartholomew tied up at Old Lynn Grove. During a card game, a card shark was discovered winning the game and Jesse pulled out his pearl handle pistol with his name engraved on it. The card cheater, in a sharp tone, demanded, “˜To whom do I owe my disgrace?’ The reply came, “˜to Jesse James.'”

 

Could it have been that one of the most famous outlaws in the nation’s history pulled a ruse and spent his final days right down here in Louisiana?  We know that Bonne and Clyde met their just rewards in the northwest parish of Bienville, near the small town of Sailes back in 1934.  There is even a small memorial stone to mark where the shooting took place.

 

So who knows?  Maybe, instead of being gunned down by a fellow gang member as many history books tell us, Grandmother Sweetie Pearl could have been right on the money in both having met Jesse James, and knowing that his final resting place was right here in the Bayou State.  There is no doubt Jesse was a tough guy. So it’s not surprising that President Trump admired the outlaw that might have ended up right here in Louisiana.

 

Peace and Justice

 

Jim Brown

 

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.

 

 

EDWARDS AND DUKE – THE RACE FROM HELL!

Monday, December 2^nd, 2024

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

EDWARDS AND DUKE – THE RACE FROM HELL!

 

It was 33 years ago this past week that perhaps the most consequential and controversial election in the nation’s history took place here in the Bayou State. Edwin Edwards and David Duke squared off in a run-off election for Governor. Not only were voters across the nation fascinated by what was taking place down in the deepest of the deep Southern states. There was worldwide interest in a showdown between a controversial former Governor and the former head of the Ku Klux Klan.

 

Incumbent Governor Buddy Roemer was squeezed out of the runoff, as Edwards outflanked him to the left and Duke overwhelmed Roemer among conservative voters. Louisiana is the only state in America that has a convoluted election system where all candidates run against each other the same time, irrespective of political affiliation. It’s been called the “jungle primary,” and was the downfall of Roemer.

 

He tried to run as centralist, and you just can’t do that under Louisiana’s current system. I know this from personal experience as a candidate for governor, as I was cut out in the same convoluted system four years earlier. Roemer was left on the sidelines as the showdown pitted conservative white Louisianans against populist southern democratic voters, with moderates stuck in the middle trying to figure out just what was the least offensive vote to cast.

 

I had an up-close view of the race as I was running myself statewide for Insurance Commissioner. My path would cross with both candidates several times a week as we each crisscrossed Louisiana in our efforts to garner votes. It was retail politics at its best as all the statewide candidates “pressed the flesh” at fairs, parades, festivals and campaign rallies all over the state. Today, candidates try to influence votes by raising money and going on TV. It’s a sad commentary on the current political atmosphere that those who hope to get elected generally ignore the chance to get out and visit with voters.

 

A surreal moment took place for me a week before the election. My wife and I took a break from our own campaigning, and drove over to a large crawfish restaurant in Breaux Bridge with some friends. I felt comfortable that I would win handily in my own race for insurance commissioner, and we just wanted to get away from all the campaigning. Some of the locals recognized me, but our group mostly stayed to ourselves in one of the corners and focused on enjoying the crawfish.

 

Just as we got settled, Edwin Edwards walked in the door. He made a beeline for our table, took a seat, ordered a tray of crawfish, and, in typical Edwards fashion, began entertaining our group and surrounding tables with his Cajun humor. Not 10 minutes later, in comes David Duke. Spotting our group, he too joined us as the whole restaurant focused on our table. The banter and joking went on for a good while between the two candidates. Then they each went to their own separate tables. In the next hour, patrons of the restaurant lined up at the tables of their chosen candidate, either Edwards or Duke, often leaving a cash donation. Just another night on the campaign trail.

 

Edwards went on to soundly defeat Duke receiving 61% of the vote, served out his fourth term as governor, went to jail, ran for Congress, had a new son at the age of 86, and passed away at the age of 93. A birthday celebration  following his release from prison was a sell out at the grand ballroom of a New Orleans hotel, and a recent poll pegged him as the most popular  governor in Louisiana’s last one hundred years.

 

Duke also went to jail, ran for U.S. Senator in 2016, and continued to rant about white supremacy. He was a factor in Donald Trump’s first presidential election as Duke endorsed Trump, and Trump refused to disassociate himself from the former Klan leader.

 

Gubernatorial elections in Louisiana are never bland and boring. But it will be hard to top the Edwards-Duke knock-down-drag-out election of 1991 that will go down in history as “the race from hell.”

 

Peace and Justice

 

Jim Brown

 

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com