Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler and former Secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) David Hood recently expressed their surprise that the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly has shrunk from $830 million to $410 million under the administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal.
The fund balance is expected to drop to $250 million or less by the end of the current fiscal year (June 30, 2014) and at the present rate of depletion, could be gone in its entirety by the end of Jindal’s term of office, leaving the next governor with having to close a huge health care financing gap.
Schedler and Hood shouldn’t be surprised. In fact, by now they should expect no less from Jindal who, despite his 2003 campaign promises to the contrary, has consistently dipped into one-time money to pay recurring expenses in an effort to plug gaping deficit holes in the state budget.
The original intent of the fund was to use only the interest and investment earnings to provide a stream of funding to pay for nursing home care and other health care services.
Revenue in the fund was to be used as a source of state matching funds for Medicaid funds to make enhanced payments to local government-owned health care facilities.
In fact, a 2012 constitutional amendment to “prohibit monies in the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly from being used or appropriated for other purposes when adjustments are made to eliminate a state deficit” was approved by voters by a 71 percent to 29 percent margin (1.3 million to 527,000).
The amendment specifically prohibits dollars in the trust fund from being used for anything other than the intended purposes and “not (for) helping to balance the state budget” and “to constitutionally protect a specific fund from being raided to help make up for shortfalls in state revenue,” according to the Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL).
Ironically, CABL took no position on the constitutional amendment prior to the election, calling it “unnecessary.”
But Jindal has consistently worked to cut mental health benefits through closure of Southeast Louisiana Hospital (SELH) in Mandeville, elimination of Early Childhood Supports and Services, vetoing funds for the developmentally disabled and even resorting to using personal email accounts to plot strategy on Medicaid cuts.
About $300 million of the money has been spent to stop cuts to the rates paid to private nursing homes for the care of Medicaid patients, according to DHH Undersecretary Jerry Phillips.
In the current budget year that began July 1, Louisiana nursing homes, which have some 29,000 residents, are slated to receive $893 million in state and federal Medicaid payments with $184 million to come from the elderly trust fund used to attract about $500 million in federal matching funds.
It should come as no surprise that with all the cuts to Medicaid, mental health treatment, early childhood support and funds for the developmentally disabled, Jindal would ensure uninterrupted funding for private nursing homes.
Jindal, after all, has received more than $380,000 in campaign contributions from nursing homes and nursing home owners.
Of that amount, $228,500 came from a single source—Elton Beebe of Ridgeland, Mississippi. Beebe, who owns several Louisiana nursing homes, funneled campaign contributions to Jindal through himself, family members, business associates and 21 nursing homes and corporations controlled by him.
The corporations list P.O. Box 6015 and 6016 or 763 Avery Blvd. North as their address. Beebe himself gave P.O. Box 6015 as the address on two of his contributions of $5,000 each and 763 Avery Blvd. North on another $5,000 contribution.
Elton Beebe’s Ridgeland, MS Headquarters
One company, Magnolia Management, gave the Avery Boulevard address on three contributions totaling $10,000 and 3900 Lakeland Drive, Ste. 400 in Jackson, Mississippi, on two others totaling another $10,000.
The contributions date back to Jindal’s first unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2003.
Each of the corporations shares either a physical address or a post office box in Ridgeland.
The remaining $155,000 in nursing home contributions were made by some three dozen Louisiana facilities besides those owned by Beebe. They were scattered throughout Louisiana.
Following are contributions by Beebe, his wife, a business associate and corporations which gave the same Ridgeland address, with the number of contributions and the years the money was given in parenthesis followed by the aggregate amount:
• E.G. (Elton) Beebe: (3 from 2007 to 2011) $15,000;
• Carol Beebe: (2 in 2010 and 2011);
• Lansing Kolb (1 in 2008) $1,000);
• Louisiana Extended Care Centers: (4 from 2003 to 2009) $17,000;
• Magnolia Properties, Inc.: (4 from 2003 to 2011) $14,500;
• Magnolia Manor Properties: (3 from 2009 to 2012) $7,500;
• Magnolia Management Services of Louisiana: (3 from 2003 to 2010) $12,500;
• Magnolia Management of Louisiana: (2 in 2008 and 2009) $5,000;
• Magnolia Management Corp.: (5 from 2003 to 2011) $20,000;
• Magnolia Health Service of Louisiana: (2 in 2007 and 2008) $7,000;
• Medico, Inc.: (4 from 2003 to 2009) $15,000;
• Administrative Systems, Inc.: (3 from 2007 to 2010) $10,000;
• Provider Professional Services: (3 from 2007 to 2010) $10,000;
• HR Property Investments, LLC: (3 from 2010 to 2012) $10,000;
• Southern Magnolia, LLC: (3 from 2010 to 2012) $10,000;
• Transmed, LLC: (2 in 2011 and 1012) $7,500;
• Lena Heritage, LLC: (3 from 2010 to 2012) $10,000;
• Lake Charles Properties: (1 in 2012) $5,000;
• Extended Care Associates: (4 from 2003 to 2009) $15,000;
• EGB, LLC: (3 in 2010 and 2011) $5,000;
• Account Management Services, Inc.: (1 in 2010) $2,500;
• AGF, LLC: (2 in 2010 and 2011) $5,000;
• Caddo Property, LLC: )2 in 2010 and 2011): $5,000;
• Alexandria Investments, LLC: (3 in 2008 and 2011).
Contributions of $2,500 each were all made by 10 of the corporations and another contributed $3,000, all on the same day: Oct. 4, 2010.
Five corporations also made contributions of $5,000 each and another gave $2,500, all on Oct. 24, 2012, a year after Jindal won re-election to his second term. That $27,500 in contributions feeds speculation that Jindal is building up a campaign war chest for a run at a national office.
Here are the other nursing homes and the amounts contributed to Jindal campaigns:
• Alpine Guest Care of Ruston: $8,000;
• Courtyard Manor Nursing Care of Lafayette: $6,000;
• Golden Age of Welsh; $9,000;
• Golden Age Nursing Center of Jena: $2,000;
• St. Agnes Healthcare of Breaux Bridge: $5,000;
• Booker T. Washington Guest Care of Shreveport: $8,000;
• Ringgold Care Center: $2,000;
• Colonial Oaks Guest Care Center of Bossier City: $8,000;
• The Guest Care Center at Spring Lake, Shreveport: $7,000;
• Pilgrim Manor Guest Care of Bossier City: $8,000;
• St. Martin De Porres Multi-Care Center of Lake Charles: $3,000;
• Norhridge Care Center of Pineville: $2,850;
• Savoy Care Center of Mamou: $5,500;
• Morgan City Health Care Center: $2,500;
• The Woodlands Healthcare Center, Leesville: $3,000;
• Franklin Health Care Center: $2,500;
• Matthews Memorial Health Care Center, Alexandria: $1,000;
• Crescent City Health Care Center, Mandeville: $1,000;
• West Carroll Care Center, Oak Grove: $1,000;
• Pinecrest Healthcare Center, Bernice: $1,000;
• Riverview Care Center, Bossier City: $2,000;
• Basile Care Center: $700;
• Guest House Properties, Winnfield: $7,500;
• The Guest House, Shreveport: $8,000;
• Louisiana Guest House, Alexandria: $1,425;
• West Monroe Guest House: $6,800;
• Rayville Guest House: $500;
• Rosepine Retirement & Rehabilitation Center: $6,450;
• River Oaks Retirement Manor, Lafayette: $6,000;
• De Soto Retirement & Rehabilitation, Mansfield: $4,350;
• Kinder Retirement & Rehabilitation: $4,950;
• Sabine Retirement & Rehabilitation Center, Many: $4,700;
• DeRidder Retirement & Rehabilitation Center; $4,450;
• River Oaks Retirement Manor, Lafayette: $6,000;
• The Retirement Center, White Plains, N.Y.: $3,000;
• The Retirement Center, Baton Rouge: $1,000.
These contributions did not include and separate contributions that may have been made by owners of these nursing homes.
Let’s review:
The Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly has been reduced by half since Jindal took office.
Only interest and investment revenue from the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly is supposed to be used to pay for nursing home care and other Medicaid expenses.
More than $300 million of the fund’s principal has been used to keep nursing home Medicaid rates afloat.
Nursing homes and their owners have contributed more than $380,000 to Jindal’s three gubernatorial campaigns.
With Jindal, it always seems to come down to a single precept: follow the money.
Louisiana Voice 
So help me understand. What happens when the fund is gone? The rates for Medicaid patients go up?
How can he illegally spend these funds? He must have others in his administration helping him and they all must know it is illegal? Our legislature is an embarrassment to humanity and seem to go along totally responsibility free. When other states have politicians get into trouble many times there are arrests and court cases and Department of Justice interventions. Why does this not happen here?
If an entire state government is corrupt can’t the national Department of Justice intervene? We are busy passing bills on prayer and get all lathered up over that mess and yet many in the state just watch like it is a big stupid reality show? There are many fine people here but too few in number to have power and the ones in power in Louisiana are the laughing stock of the nation and the world.
I’m not from here but I have lived here for 20 years after leaving the USAF and am dumbfounded that so much is wrong when the state could be doing so much better. Do so many people from here like it this way or are those in power so evil they could care less about their constituents? Who is voting for these idiots?
Nearly everyone I know in Louisiana is voting for these people as long as there is an R behind the name. Most voters were well aware that Jindal’s plans were to put all tax revenues and fund balances into the hands of profiteers, and everyone cheered, because… JAAHHHBZ. The majority of voters in this state seemed to think more of their tax momey into the hands of corporatists meant they’d all get raises and then reduce the taxes and live happily ever after in the pockets of profiteers and call it self-reliance. Up until they started actually seeing the results of moving state money and assets into the hands of profiteers — and really, they ain’t seen nuttin yet — but up until now, shrinking the government, eiminating services to their fellow humans, funding the profiteers — the whole ALEC show — was a good and noble purpose because it was drenched in R and R equals all things good and holy. Doesn’t matter what you see, only what you hear them say. Now — surprise — there hasn’t been even a one-dollar decrease in their tax deductions, friends and neighbors are getting laid off from state jobs well into their careers and there are no new JAAHHHBZ to be had in little old Godforsaken, Louisiana; the state’s operating budget and fund accounts are being directed into the hands of questionable companies adding questionable value; assets are disappearing and there’s nothing to show for them, and now the masses are angry — and ONLY because they themselves haven’t seen an increase, however small, in their paychecks. Because in small minds, that is the only thing that matters, today’s paycheck. Nevertheless, they will, in the same numbers, vote for the R next time, too, because that’s where the “morality” is.
Pardon my rant.
Response to Confused: You obviously are confused about how Medicaid rates are set, and how nursing home care is funded. According to the figures quoted, Louisiana Medicaid is paying on average $84.37 per patient day for nursing home care. That is a bargain by any metric. Louisiana is constantly and consistantly at the bottom of state Medicaid funding for nursing home care in the US. Your first question assumes that rates for residents will “go up” if the fund is depleted. The portion of the daily rate paid by the resident only changes if their income changes. Most Medicaid residents in Louisiana have to apply their income to their care, less $38 per month for things not covered in the consolidated billing statutes. If the fund is depleted, the state will have to find new ways to finance the portion that Medicaid pays providers, or reduce rates, or both, but in any of those scenarios the amount paid by the individual Medicaid resident will not change.
Although it is unfortunate that the state has chosen to dip into the principal of the trust fund, it is not illegal. You can rest your confused mind, if the current federal administration’s DOJ had reason to investigate our Governor, they would most certainly do so.
Finally, thank you for your service, and Semper Fi.
When Jindal sends those nursing homes “Down the River” with his refusal of federal aid (Obamacare) then what can/will they do but raise the price of health care for the residents in the facilities or be put kicked out the street, as so many have been? He’ll desert them just like he has the state employees and teachers. They will find out that he takes and takes, but giving out has a price and I believe by the time they wake up, they will be drowning in that old Mississippi River.
Thanks Tom, interesting information and it does seem illegal, but what do I know, I’ll just watch and “follow the money.”
Is this an impeachable act? We have got to find a way to get rid of Jindal.
My question exactly. What can citizens do to stop the lawless fascist? Our recall efforts made little headway with stupid voters in this state. Impeach? Who enforces state law when feckless GOP legislators are in bed with Jindal and the AG changed parties to lie down with the dogs?
The third world “wonderkin” is from a caste-system society where public education and health care are for the wealthy. As Jindal swindles his way into the presidential bubble he’s selling off public assets for pennies on the dollar and getting millions in questionable contributions. Leaving office he will have bankrupted the state, not just the Medicaid Trust Fund.
Great reporting as usual, Tom. How now to stop the Piyush?
Tom once again you uncover more underhanded dealings this punk we have as a Governor has pulled on more of the most needy people of this state.
Tom if you can find out all of the dastardly deeds this administration is pulling, why aren’t the people who we pay to keep things like this from happening doing so?
Thank you Tom for another great piece of work, I only hope that sooner or later your hard work pays off with a lot more than your readers telling you what a great job you are doing in keeping us informed.
Another great piece. Thanks.
Regarding the comments on getting rid of Jindal, the hurdles are too high. A tactical approach could be to just see that he is politically weakened by releasing state polls which are sure to be devastating. That would eat into Jindal’s political capital. I saw that in a national presidential poll, Jindal got 2 percent. He’s about to slip off the radar screen. We’re stuck with Jindal here in Louisiana, so he needs to be weakened to the point that officials just might finally grow some cojones and stand up to the little clown.
Don’t get your hopes up on that one. Remember the names of the members of the lege that “mailed in their ballots” signaling they were against a special session to override some of the little tyrant’s most egregious vetoes. Remember the ones who voted “no” when it’s election time.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time,”
Abraham Lincoln, (Republican) President of the USA
There are underhanded dealings going on in every department and agency in this state.
I’m sure glad we have tom working to unravel it all.
Sometimes ol’ Tom feels like he’s trying to shovel water with a pitchfork.
If the Press in Louisiana was performing its role in what is supposed to be a Free Society, they would be posting a “Jindal Swindle” daily–just as Tom does. For heavens sake, if they do nothing but post Tom’s full Louisiana Voice columns or report on-air what he has written they will soon have the electorate educated and up at arms about the travesty that is our state government–all branches. Then a return to sanity and respectability and fiscal responsibility could begin.
I’d bet good money that if Tom Aswell ran for Governor on the “Throw The Bums Out” ticket, he’d win in a landslide. I’d kick in $25 to feed the mule he’d ride about the state campaigning. Anyone else interested in supporting an honest draft candidate? I know Tom’s going to be furious with me for suggesting this, but I’m about 75%+ serious.
Mr. Aswell,
All I can say is WOW! Is there no limit to the lengths these clowns will go to fatten the already swollen bank accounts of their political pals? What will happen when the fund goes bust? Do a “saint” Ronnie of Raygun? As the governor of California, he closed the state mental hospitals to “save the state money”. Sure, until the mentally ill/impaired ended up on the streets and then in jail where the costs to house them far exceeded the cost of all the old state hospitals by a large amount. I do not have the actual figures handy. In those days I was not following politics so closely. Having recently been released from the USMC after 4 years honorable service and a tour in Vietnam. Life was calling me then to get on with learning my trade and getting my civilian life on track.
One small quibble with this post if I may sir. As an old fan of Mad Magazine and Alfred E, Newman, I do not think using his likeness below that of Booby is appropriate. Alfred was much smarter and more of a true caring person than the current governor of the state of Louisiana ever will be even in the best dreams that Booby may ever hope to have. This small things aside, I thank you very, very much for your web site/blog and all that you do to educate us all.
THANK YOU SIR!
my very best to you and yours,
charlie bear
Alexandria, LA
Reblogged this on The Daily Kingfish and commented:
Crony Capitalism. #Jindalized