Don't Blame This on Obama

As I talk with many of my friends and acquaintances, I hear the Obama Administration being blamed more and more for naturally occurring events in our society.  The list now includes the increase in the price of gasoline along with the increased price of groceries in the super market.  I can’t wait for the list to expand to include the weather.

However, let’s discuss one event, that will occur, that will NOT be the fault of the Obama Administration.  It involves the Group Benefits Medical Insurance Plan in Louisiana. The plan provides medical insurance for over 250,000 state employees and their dependents.  Two years ago it was touted as one of the best run plans in the United States with a cash reserve of over a half billion dollars (monies available to pay  retirees’ medical expenses).

Bobby and his ‘experts’ reorganized the plan and now the cash reserve is less than half of what it used to be and continues to dwindle.   Jindal’s leading health care puppet, Kristy Nichols, Commissioner of Administration, blames the sudden decrease in the reserve on the aging, “very ill state worker population.”

However, what Nichols fails to tell you is that the overall characteristics of this insured population has NOT change statistically from previous years.  The only factor that did change was Governor Jindal’s expert reorganization of the entire system, which, by the way, he touts, is just the beginning of some even bigger overall retirees’ health plan reorganization. 

Please don’t forget that Jindal is a master of deception.   As a way to help balance his smoke and mirrors state budget, Bobby REDUCED the insurance premiums of those in the plan by 8% for the last two years.  Since the state pays up to 75% of the premiums for some of the plan's members, this reduced the state's cost in the budget.  However this budget trick resulted in depletion of the reserve funds even faster.

It doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to figure out how Kristy and Bobby plan to resolve the Bobbycare mess they’ve created.  They will have to significantly raise the insurance premiums and reduce the benefits to continue to pay the health costs for this newly Nichols-created buzz term “very ill state worker population.”

So let’s be perfectly clear, when Group Benefits suddenly reduces state retirees’ health care coverage, increases their co-payments, and raises their premiums,  please,  let’s not drag out the Obama excuse, but, instead, put the blame squarely where it belongs, Bobbycare.

UPDATE: As of 5/24/14, the cash reserve is $55 million.