The procedure for laying off up to 121 employees of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) has been initiated by the Jindal administration in the aftermath of the privatization of the OGB Preferred Provider Organization (PPO).
A memorandum dated Aug. 23 has been circulated to OGB employees by Steven Procopio of the Office of Human Resources in the Division of Administration setting the effective date of the staff reductions as Jan. 2, 2013.
The layoffs must be approved by the State Civil Service Board but the board on Aug. 1 approved the awarding of the contract for the PPO to Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) of Louisiana, so the consideration of the layoff proposal should be little more than a formality by the board which has demonstrated a propensity to roll over and play dead for the administration.
BCBS already is the TPA for the state’s HMO.
Positions affected by the termination notice are in Internal Audit, Administration, Quality Assurance, Fiscal, Flexible Benefits/Imaging Services, Legal and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) Compliance, Customer Service, Information Technology, Claims and Provider Services.
Employees of these offices are domiciled in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, Lafayette, Ouachita, Caddo, Calcasieu and Rapides.
The BCBS assumption of the third party administrator (TPA) duties for the PPO is scheduled to take effect with the beginning of the new calendar year in January.
Gov. Piyush Jindal and Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater have consistently insisted that the state should not be in the insurance business and that a private entity can administer insurance claims on behalf of state employees more cheaply and more efficiently than the state—despite OGB’s having built reserves of $500 million over the past half-dozen years.
Several independent studies have intimated that premiums are likely to increase after the first year because a private TPA will face the double whammy of the need to show a profit and the requirement to pay taxes on profits—factors the state never had to consider when it administered the claims.
Jindal, who made a point of voicing his concern and respect for state employees when he ran for governor has shown little, if any, of either sentiment since becoming governor. In fact, he has consistently attacked state employees at every turn including the orchestration of failed attempts to dismantle Civil Service and to gut the state employee retirement system—both to the detriment of state workers.
Jindal, after failing to sell state prison facilities, simply closed two of them and then announced the closure of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville without notifying the legislative delegation in that part of the state—a delegation which until then had been fiercely loyal to him.
The closure of the Mandeville facility will adversely affect more than 500 employees and up to 170 inpatient recipients of mental health care. Moreover, with its closure, there will be no state facility offering mental health care for an entire section of the state that includes the parishes of Tangipahoa, St. Tammany, Washington, Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Jefferson.
Other state medical facilities and LSU teaching hospitals also are threatened by the lost of some $800 million in Medicaid funding and higher education also has taken a major hit with near catastrophic budgetary cutbacks.
Yet, as all this economic train wreck careens out of control down the tracks, Jindal continues to travel the country—initially auditioning for the vice presidential nomination on Mitt Romney’s ticket and when that failed, soldiering on as the dutiful lap dog in support of the Republic Party that has relegated him to a minor speaking role at next week’s GOP convention.
Hardly an appropriate token of appreciation, considering all he has done on behalf of his second choice for the nomination while ignoring a state falling apart back home.
The leadership vacuum experienced by Louisiana during this administration is not what one would expect to read of in Jindal’s book Leadership and Crisis, now is it?
The real of the crisis, after all, is his abysmal lack of leadership.
If, as New Orleans’ Gambit so succinctly pointed out, he truly has the job he loves, he should return to Louisiana to address the myriad of problems facing the state and in so doing, put his money (read: efforts) where only his mouth has been.
Louisiana Voice 
The more I read of the horrible effects of Jindal’s pillaging of our state, the more I despise those people, individually and collectively, that have turned on their fellow man (or neighbor as Jesus referred to them) out of timidity or greed.
Neither Jindal nor those that do his bidding can even remotely justify considering themselves Christian. I only wish I could stand at the pearly gates when they arrive to plead their cases to Saint Peter. Something tells me that in each case the score will be heaven None, hell One.
I think you are missing the mark on BJ. I think he is glad he was not chosen. He really does not want to play second fiddle to anyone. He assumes the big O will win next time and he does not want to BR tied to yet another loser (perry). BJ wants to run for POTUS on his own record as a fiscal hawk. He and his ring of ambitious twerps wll win by touting what they did in LA, while really meaning what they did to LA. That is why he wll not stop. Although you are correct that his actual rise to a prominent national position is dwindling, his little band of whiners are telling him he can do it.
You may be correct, but I really believe he wanted the VP slot very badly so he could use is as a stepping stone a-la Nixon, Johnson, Bush the First and (almost) Gore.
What can he do now? By the end of this term as governor, he will be exposed for the fraud he is when all his programs end up as disastrous failures and he will have no record on which to run. He wanted the VP slot so he could escape Louisiana before the crash. Now he’s stuck with us and we with him.
A lot probably hinges on his speech Tuesday at the GOP convention. If he does a repeat of 2009, he’s going to see friends in the party suddenly become invisible and unaccessible.
i wonder where the $500 million will go that has been saved by OGB.
Interesting that Gov. Jindal did not attend the celebration at Baton Rouge High yesterday. It is his high school alma mater. Then, maybe he was writing his GOP remarks. Could he have been a bit reluctant to face a crowd of very likely very disgruntled voters? Could there have been those among the attendees that have lost their jobs due to his privatization obsessions? He really does have difficulty answering questions when he doesn’t know the questions that will be asked. BTW, I’m not at all excited about hearing his words from the stage at the GOP Convention nor am I planning a party.
Please share this with someone at the Associated Press.
I suspect that the next move in this assault on the State will involve United Health “Buying” OGB and using the 500 million as cash in the purchase, United can then bleed the State employees at its leisure.