Dedicated Funds Not Safe from Jindal

Recently there has been a lot of chatter regarding President Obama’s purported violation of the U. S. Constitution by over stepping his authority.  One of his most vocal critics is the governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal.

However, Jindal probably ranks as one of the most hypocritical critics of all of President Obama’s foes.

One only has to look at Jindal’s budgetary schemes to find abundant examples of exceeding one’s authority coupled with a total disregard for the Louisiana constitution and the wishes of the Louisiana voters.

During Jindal’s term he has continually raided funds that were dedicated by constitutional amendment, legislative proposition, or mandate for specific purposes, and used them instead for other purposes in order to balance the state’s operating budget.

Some of these dedicated funds’ confiscations included:

1)      The raiding of $40 million each year from the Millennium Trust Fund, the tobacco industry suit monies originally mandated for health and education needs.

 

2)      The Medicaid Elderly Trust Fund totaling over $830 million.   Money initially dedicated for providing supportive home health services for the elderly and disabled.  The intent of these funds was to never touch the principal amount, but Jindal has depleted the principal to supplement Medicaid reimbursements to private nursing homes.

3)      The Office of Group Benefits health insurance reserve fund totaling over $550 million.

4)      The retirement fund for probation and parole officers totaling over $3.7 million. The Jindal administration is being sued over the raiding of these funds and is presently in the appeal’s process.

5)      Dedicated Louisiana Public Service Commission funds.  The administration is also being sued over the confiscation of these funds.

6)      The Artificial Reef Development Fund.  Monies dedicated for the construction of artificial reefs to slow coastal erosion totaling over $44.5 million.

7)      Katrina recovery monies dedicated for home owners that suffered hurricane damage. Some of this money was raided and redirected for upgrades, NOT REPAIRS, to the Superdome.

8)      The Concealed Handgun Permit Fund, totaling $1.2 million, legislated to be used solely for the administrative costs in issuing permits.

9)      The Blind Vendors’ Trust Fund, totaling $1.6 million. This fund was established to set aside money from vending operations in courthouses and other state or federal properties and use it to help the legally blind run snack stands, cafeterias and vending machines. By raiding this fund, Jindal is literally taking money from the blind.

10)  The Transportation Trust Fund.  Bobby raided over $60 million from this road and bridge infrastructure repair and maintenance fund and gave it to the state police.

11)  The St. Landry’s Excellence Fund  ear marked to provide additional educational funding in St. Landry Parish.

The list goes on, but space is limited.

The main issue with all these funds being raided is not whether you agree, or disagree with the merits of the funds, but the fact that Louisiana citizens approved the establishment of them for specific purposes by exercising their vote.

Governor Bobby Jindal continues to ignore the mandates of the people who he was elected to serve, and, in some cases, even state constitutional amendments; the same behavior which he energetically attributes to our President.

And the greater hypocrisy of all this is many in his own political party, who also complain about our President, condone Jindal’s behavior by allowing the funds’ raiding to continue each budget year.

It appears we have our own Obama clone right here in Louisiana.

How much will the OGB insurance plans really cost?

The new medical insurance rates imposed by the Office of Group Benefits on our state workers, teachers, and retirees are of great concern.  However, it’s not just the dramatic economic burden on its members’ family budgets that should bother us.  In addition, we should be concerned that the present cost changes may NOT be based on sound actuarial valuations but simply are guesstimates by the Commissioner of Administration Office and OGB.

If one goes to the OGB website you will notice that a Request for Proposals (RFP) is being lent for actuarial services beginning January 1, 2015 and ending December 31, 2015 to evaluate the cost liabilities of the OGB medical plans.

For those not familiar with the term ‘actuarial valuation,’ it’s basically a type of report which serves as a guide to companies in making economic and demographic assumptions in order to estimate future liabilities.  In the case of OGB, this report would give guidance as to whether the new cost increases are sufficient to allow the plans to be self-sustaining.

Apparently, from the recent RPF, it appears OGB is going to monitor their costs during plan implementation and this is good standard business practice.  It is for one year with the option to renew with the same company for two additional years.

What should concern  us is that NO such RFP for actuarial services for evaluating the feasibility of the new OGB cost changes BEFORE they were implemented can be found.  I have contacted Susan West, CEO of OGB, requesting this information, but have to date, received NO response.  When I made other informational requests, I received an immediate response.

The deafening silence surrounding this request leads me to believe that perhaps NO such analysis was done.   Therefore OGB is HOPING that the cost increases will be adequate because there appears to be no reliable supportive cost projection data.

My major concern is if the actuarial valuations beginning January 1, 2015, indicate that OGB erred in their guesstimates, and underestimated, state workers, teachers, and retirees will be saddled with yet ANOTHER increase in their health care costs midway through next year.

And remember, OGB monthly premiums will never rise, because that would mean a greater cost burden for the state.

Instead OGB could just keep increasing ‘out-of-pocket’, ‘deductibles’, and the number of ‘required authorization’  procedures, until “they get it right.”

As more and more information slowly becomes apparent surrounding the entire OGB situation, beginning with the decision to lower insurance premiums by 8% for two years, one is forced to question the competence of those Jindal appointees involved with it.  From Jindal’s point of view they are probably considered most competent because they dutifully carry out his unconscionable deeds.  However, from an unbiased, good business practice model, they flunk the test.

 However, the only thing that is certain about the OGB insurance plans is that its members will continue to remain in the dark about how much to budget for their health insurance costs.

Are Our Legislators Really Masochistic?

With all the misinformation and missing support data regarding the justification for the Office of Group Benefits’ radical changes to the medical health insurance plans for state employees, teachers, and retirees, one has to wonder about the self preservation skills of most of our state representatives.

Upon my inquiry to OGB, I learned that our legislators fall under the same plans as the rest of us folk.

Let’s forget about the fact that our representatives don’t always look out for the best interests of us citizens, and instead focus on the reality that they didn’t even have enough common sense to look out for their own well-beings.

Some might speculate that they assumed the martyr’s role because they believed all the budgetary distortions espoused by Jindal and his cohorts, and felt the changes were necessary for the overall budgetary health of our fine state, the bigger picture.

However, after recent enlightenment from representative John Bel Edwards and state treasurer, John Kennedy, we learn that several legislative and fiscal management procedures were violated by Jindal’s folks.   Not only did Jindal possibly violate the Administrative Procedures Act, a ruling by the state attorney general also concluded that the Jindal administration had not allowed the Legislature enough oversight or provided proper notification before making the drastic changes to the health care plans.  In fact, some claim that Jindal’s minions didn’t even have the authority to unilaterally implement ANY of these changes.

One would hope that ALL our legislators know about these procedures and when they are violated.  Also, I would think that since these changes were going to directly impact their own financial well-being, that our representatives would have shown great concern when these changes were proposed.   It took state workers, retirees and teachers to sound the alarm.

Maybe the real reason for their recent willingness to impose self-inflicted damage is because they spend too much time playing with their cell phones, notebooks, and iPads during legislative sessions and pay little attention to what’s being done to the citizens of this state, and in this situation, to themselves.

The Sad Truth About Louisiana

I could not have said this any better:

Letters to the Editor, The Baton Rouge Advocate, 10/14/2014

Louisiana remains poor despite its vital importance to the welfare of the nation, its strategic location, its abundant natural resources and its people who for generations have had a strong work ethic.
In stark contrast to Louisiana, East Texas (including Houston) with the same assets — except the Mississippi River — has grown rich since 1935 while our state has remained poor. Why?

This writer opines that the state’s poverty despite its valuable assets results from too many governors with poor leadership skills, too many governors who served to better themselves, not the state, too many governors who spent the state’s finite oil and gas money in the wrong places and too many legislators who voted in the best interest of the exploiters of the state rather than in the best interest of the people of the state.

A recent example of the mismanagement of the state’s assets is the six-year assault by Gov. Bobby Jindal and his allies, the legislators, on the state’s best hope for a better economic future, Louisiana’s public universities. State Legislative Fiscal Office statistics reveal that the legislators have cut funding of higher education by more than $1 billion in the last six years.

The “our hands are tied by the state constitution” excuse used by legislators to do nothing to stop university cuts is a myth that has been debunked by state Treasurer John Kennedy on numerous occasions. Billions in statutory dedications and corporate tax exemptions could be trimmed to fund higher education if the lawmakers had the guts to risk losing the political support of special interest groups that wield undue influence over the Legislature.

The powerful influence of special interest on the Legislature was evident in 2013 when “fiscal hawk” legislators proposed trimming some of the 450 corporate tax exemptions in order to reduce another billion-dollar state deficit and thereby help higher education. The measure was gaining momentum in the House when, suddenly, the “hawks” surrendered when told “no” by special interest groups composed primarily of companies that have, for decades, treated Louisiana as a colony, a place to be exploited for its natural resources, with the profits invested in other states.

Despite its valuable assets, Louisiana not only ranks at the bottom of the nation in higher education funding, it is also stuck at or near the bottom in the other quality-of-life national rankings.

What needs to change? The moving force will have to be a governor who combines strong leadership skills with honesty and with determination to work for the people, not the special interest. This visionary governor will lead our state to its rightful place in the sun, a place of prosperity.

Howard Franques
retired lawyer

Lafayette

Trick or no treat

It has finally become clear to me why Bobby Jindal is opposed to the adoption of the Common Core Standards.   Apparently he has created his own educational standards and already field tested them by self-schooling himself and some other state staff in the area of mathematics.   The fruition of this task is evidenced in his latest fiscal report to the state legislature.

By law the administration is required to issue a ‘general fund balance’ report to the Legislative Budget Committee in October of each year.  Using the Jindalian Math Standards, Bobby reported a $175.5 million state budget SURPLUS from last fiscal year.  The report itself did NOT disclose how the figure was derived or the source of the leftover cash. 

Our state treasurer, John Kennedy, who apparently was schooled utilizing a more traditional set of educational standards, claims the state has a $141 million DEFICIT and has the figures to support it.

Gee, that’s a $316.5 million discrepancy.

It appears that Kristy Nichols, our clairvoyant Commissioner of Administration, has also adopted the Jindalian Math Standards because she concluded that $319 million from, and I quote, “a variety of funds” carried over from several PRIOR state fiscal years should be added to last year’s figure to create this surplus.

She further demonstrated her expertise in fiscal management by stating that these monies had been sitting around for over 12 years and never included in any previous public revenue reports.

So let me try to understand this accounting procedure.  If previous governors had a surplus of money left in their budgets but failed to report that figure, we can take that money that no longer exists and use that figure to off-set a real deficit for the past fiscal year under Jindal’s leadership.

Using Nichols' methodology, for example let’s suppose that governors Edwin Edwards, Mike Foster, and Kathleen Blanco had a combined total of $500 million surplus funds for some of their state budget years that failed to be included in year-end balance calculation reports for whatever reason.  Nichols, utilizing Jindalian Math Standards, claims that if Jindal’s budget many years later showed a $200 million DEFICIT, she can report to the Legislative Budget Committee that there is a $300 million SURPLUS based on this money that was not formally reported.  However, the ability to actually put one’s hand on this money remains a mystery.

I must admit  Jindal’s folks continue to awe me with their smoke and mirrors budgetary tactics.  They are quite resourceful with their bag of tricks.  But then again this is the ‘trick or treat’ time of year.

Basically, Nichols is using the responsible fiscal management skills of PREVIOUS governors to mask the fiscal incompetence of the present administration.

Prior to issuing this fiscal report Jindal and Nichols advised legislative financial experts by conference call about this NEW way of issuing the state ‘general balance report,’  and the really sad part about all of this is, Nichols claims the legislative representatives, “agree with us.”   However, some did admit that they weren’t provided enough information to tell whether it’s the CORRECT approach.

I think one of my favorite t-shirts pretty much summarizes all this - “When all else fails, manipulate the data.”

However, on a positive note, I guess the issue of reduced hospitalization coverage for members of the Office of Group Benefits plans can now be laid to rest.  Apparently now there’s enough surplus money to fund the original plans without any changes.  Don’t bet on it.

I can’t wait until all the Jindalian Educational Standards are implemented statewide in our schools.

Watch Out for Amendment #1

Be careful of the tricky wording of Amendment #1 on the upcoming election.  It is being PR’d by the Louisiana Nursing Home Association as a benefit to the elderly in this state. This may not be the case.

When Mike Foster was governor of our state he used matching federal monies to set up the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly.  The fund contained more than $830 million.   The original intent of the trust fund was to leave the principle intact and use the interest and investment earnings to fund community and home support services for the elderly so that they could remain living independently in their homes for a longer time.  It basically postponed the time when it finally became necessary to enter a nursing home facility.

When Jindal took over, he, along with legislators’ approval, raided the principal amount of the elderly trust fund to prevent Medicaid funding cuts from being implemented for PRIVATE nursing homes throughout the state. While other medical services throughout the state received drastic funding cuts, the PRIVATE nursing homes were shielded from such cuts with the fund’s money.

It is estimated that the ENTIRE fund will be wiped out by the end of Jindal’s term.

With an eye on the future, the Louisiana Nursing Home Association has realized their protection from state budget cuts is about to end.  Consequently, they got the legislators to propose a constitutional amendment that will protect nursing homes from any future state budget cuts, Amendment #1 on the ballot.

Amendment passage will make it very difficult for the state to reduce funding rates for nursing homes.

If yet another entity is protected by constitutional amendment from state budget cuts, deeper cuts will be made to education, medical services, behavioral help services, and home help services because they have no such constitutional funding protection.

Unlike what the Louisiana Nursing Home Association would like you to believe, a ‘NO’ vote will be the real benefit for senior citizens in our state.   It will allow legislators more opportunities to spread any future budgetary cuts equally among ALL aspects of care for the elderly, and permit more monies to be utilized to continue the services which allow seniors to remain living independently in their homes for a longer time.

It is imperative that legislators be given this budgetary flexibility in light of the fact that Jindal has completely wiped out the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly, funds that will NEVER be restored.

Vote ‘NO’ for Amendment #1.

When is a contract not a contract?

Wednesday’s Hammond Star featured a guest commentary by Governor Jindal about the success of his privatization of the LSU Charity Health Care System.  However, what he failed to include in his commentary was the fact that so far the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have yet to approve his plan.   Since the Medicare and Medicaid monies are the major funding source for paying for this venture, one would have thought that Jindal would have consulted with CMS to verify its legality BEFORE implementing it. But true to form, Bobby’s intellectual arrogance took precedence over common sense and he decided to forgo CMS pre-approval.

Since the plan has been in operation for almost a year, and has yet to win CMS approval, I wonder how it is presenting being funded.  Maybe Bobby is just borrowing money from other state agencies in his usual smoke and mirrors fashion.

However, what is interesting is that the contracts to privately administer the charity hospitals in New Orleans, Lafayette, Bogalusa, Lake Charles, Shreveport and Monroe were all just revised to include the following clauses:

1)     The private operators of these hospitals now have the ability to cancel the contract at ANY time with a 60-day notice due to “inconvenience”

2)    The private operators have been allowed to reduce their obligations in providing “core” and “key” services to the poor and uninsured patients.

 

The terms “inconvenience”, and “core” and “key” services are certainly very ambiguous and dangerous  terminology to include in any contract.  They are very dependent upon each party’s interpretation.

So basically, if the private companies aren’t making ENOUGH profit they can just close down the hospital’s operation because it’s too “inconvenient” to continue to operate, and if they don’t feel like offering a particular needed medical service because someone lacks medical insurance, that’s also okay.

Sure glad I didn’t have that “inconvenient” clause in my recent house repair contract.  Maybe if the weather had gotten any hotter, my guy would have just left the job because it was too  “inconvenient.”

I also wonder if this present private sector contract really reflects the original intend of the charity hospital system, a health care safety net for the most in need.  

Please don’t misunderstand my point,  if Jindal wants to less burden the state financially and operate these hospitals in this way, so be it.  But don’t lie to the public by reporting to the media about, “more health care access, better quality of services, and lower health costs” being provided,  as compared to the old charity health care system , because the private administration of these hospitals is operating under a different set of rules and is completely different from what previously existed.

A comparison of the ‘old’ LSU Charity Hospital System to the present one is totally meaningless and only time will tell if better health care services will be provided coupled with health care cost savings.  That is, if Bobby finally gets CMS approval, and some of the privately administered hospitals don’t find it too “inconvenient” and cease providing any services at all.

Jindal Loves Rewarding Incompetence

 

Just recently the Jindal administration issued a legislative mandated evaluation report of the effectiveness of Bobby’s privatization of the Medicaid care system in Louisiana, known as the Bayou Health Plans. 

Naturally, the report was filled with positive statements about the improvement of the delivery of services while at the same time producing substantial monetary savings for our state.

In response to this report the state legislative auditor also evaluated this privatization effort and reported that the stated facts in the Jindal’s administration evaluation were NOT based upon an independent, unbiased assessment of the privatization plans.  It further stated Jindal’s evaluation lacked information supporting the “global assertions” of cost savings and improved health care cited in the report.

No matter, the contract has been continued.

However, the latest legislative auditor report is even more damning of Jindal’s privatization push.  This report is a follow up to one issued a year ago evaluating the privatization of the care of individuals in need of mental health services including substance abuse.  The initiative is called the Louisiana Behavioral Health Partnership and Magellan of Louisiana is the name of the private entity presently administering the services.

The present auditor’s report found the following:

Staffing levels had been reduced resulting in higher caseloads, longer waits for services, and reductions in the types of services delivered.

A failure to collect on third party billings, i.e. private insurance and Medicare, resulting in a loss of over $1 million in claims

A failure to meet the original contract requirement to link up with Louisiana’s Health Information Exchange to safely share clients’ information to improve patient safely and quality of care

A failure to reliably track patients’ care

However, here’s the kicker, the original contract was issued in March of 2012 for $357.6 million and ended February, 2014.  The initial state auditor’s report, conducted last year, raised several ‘red’ flags about the quality of services being provided by this privatization effort and the present report confirms that this effort is still a failure.  Yet the Jindal administration, along with assistance from puppets in both the state senate and house, EXTENDED this contract until February, 2015, and INCREASED the it by almost $200 million to $544.8 million.

Our Rhodes Scholar loves to continue using our hard-earned bucks to award incompetence, just to make it appear nationally that his privatization plans are working successfully in our state.

In summary, this privatization model is losing money, providing worse behavioral health services, and just was given $200 million more to continue.   Does Bobby really think the citizens of Louisiana believe his privatization models are more effective and less expensive than what we originally had?   Name just one that is working successfully.