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My grandfather had a favorite expression he was fond of saying: “The stuck pig squeals the loudest.”
That may well explain the sudden onslaught of reassurances emanating from the Jindal administration in the form of press releases and op-eds, all telling us that our benevolent governor, expert that he is on health care, is taking care of and we shouldn’t worry about all those looming increased costs and reduced benefits.
But as it turns out, we may be about to see a new development to the controversy swirling around the proposed premium increases and benefit cuts for members of the Office of Group Benefits.
And just in case you might be wondering why your friendly legislator hasn’t been up in arms over the radical changes in health coverage being proposed for some 230,000 state employees, retirees and their dependents through the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) before now, there’s a reason.
If some similar action were taken to adversely affect their per diem, travel, and other perks, it would be quite another story. They’d have been squealing long before now.
But you see, 261 House members and staff and 151 senators and staff are not members of OGB and therefore, don’t have any skin in the game (my grandfather would have said they don’t have a dog in the hunt) being played by the administration and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana.
So where do those 412 people get their health coverage?
LSU First.
And now two of those legislators who earlier fell out of favor with Gov. Bobby Jindal when they questioned the wisdom of privatizing OGB at the outset, Reps. Joe Harrison (R-Gray) and Cameron Henry (R-Metairie) are back and the governor can’t be happy about it.
And Henry is even putting out feelers about moving all 230,000 members of OGB to LSU First, saying it is something “we should explore for employees to get into since the Office of Group Benefits is fiscally unsound.”
Meanwhile, House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles), normally a wad of putty in Jindal’s hands, has suddenly grown something akin to a spine and called for a special hearing on Sept. 24 to take up the OGB changes. Other legislators also beginning make demands of the administration to have someone present to answer questions about the radical changes.
State Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite), a candidate for governor, said he wanted administration representatives questioned under oath.
It was Edwards who originally requested that Kleckley call a meeting of legislators to discuss OGB. “The OGB fiasco is proof positive that privatization for the sake of privatization is foolish,” he said. “A reserve balance that recently exceeded $500 million is half that now and bleeding $16M per month due to mismanagement and budget chicanery, and the ultimate price will be paid by state retirees and employees through higher premiums, higher co-pays, higher deductibles, and higher co-insurance in exchange for fewer benefits, more forced generic drugs, and more preclearance of needed treatments and other changes that make crystal clear that the OGB beneficiaries will pay more for less.”
“I feel vindicated,” Harrison was quoted as saying by the New Orleans Times Picayune in reference to the depletion of the OGB trust fund which has shrunk from $540 million to less than half that since Jindal’s privatization plan went into effect. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/09/louisiana_legislators_have_a_h.html#incart_river “Exactly what I said was going to happen is now happening,” Harrison said.
And Henry is even putting out feelers about moving all 230,000 members of OGB to LSU First, saying it is something “we should explore for employees to get into since the Office of Group Benefits is fiscally unsound.”
Jindal had Henry and Harrison removed from their respective committee assignments when the two refused to go along with Jindal’s legislative agenda during the 2013 legislative session.
Administration officials, in an attempt to discourage a mass exodus from OGB said state employees now in OGB may not find the LSU First plans to be a better option, invoking such terms as “better service,” “strike a balance,” “right sizing of benefits,” “wider range of options,” and “it’s all the fault of Obamacare.”
So, just what is LSU first, anyway?
LSU First is the health coverage offered employees throughout the LSU system and back near the end of the Mike Foster administration, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was approved that allowed legislators and legislative staff members to opt out of OGB in favor of LSU First.
The plan presently is not available to employees of Louisiana’s other institutions of higher learning or civil service employees other than those working for the Legislature.
So, why would anyone make the switch?
The answer to that is simple: Even before the pending revamp of OGB which will prove far more costly to members, LSU First was vastly superior in the benefits it offers. And now, with the increased premiums, higher deductibles and co-pays for OGB members (an overall cost increase of 47 percent), the contrast between the two plans is even more stark. http://www.lsufirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2014_LSU_First_SPD.pdf
http://www.lsufirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2014-SBC-Opt1.pdf
LSU established the plan for the fiscal year July 1, 2002 through June 30, 2003, adopting the “Definity Health Model Health Coverage Plan,” and the House and Senate climbed on board a year later, on July 1, 2003. The original MOU was signed in May of 2003 by then-LSU President William Jenkins, House Speaker Charles DeWitt, Jr. (D-Alexandria), and Senate President John Hainkel, Jr. (R-New Orleans).
No sooner said than done. The ink wasn’t even dry on the signatures on the MOU when legislators and staff members started a mass migration to the LSU plan. Additionally, civil service workers scattered throughout state government who were fortunate enough to have spouses working for LSU also switched.
The language in the MOU was such that any legislator who left the House or Senate and moved on to another state office or appointment was allowed to retain his or her coverage under LSU First. That would include, for example, people like former Gov. Mike Foster, Commissioner of Alcohol and Tobacco Control Troy Hebert, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, and former House Speaker Jim Tucker.
LouisianaVoice made an inquiry of the LSU administrative types as to who pays the employer portion of the premiums and whether or not the governor, the commissioner of administration, and cabinet members were eligible for member in LSU First.
What we got back was less than satisfactory but entirely typical of the mindset of this administration. “We have fulfilled your public record request and any further questions can be directed to our University Relations office,” wrote Stephanie Tomlinson, coordinator, LSU Finance and Administration.
In other words, if one asks a simple question and does not specifically request documents or records, he is out of luck. This administration has no intention of helping someone seeking information and would prefer to toss obstacles in the path of transparency.
But we can play this game, too. We replied with the following email:
Okay, we’ll try it this way:
Please provide any and all documents and/or public records that identify all eligible members of LSU First medical coverage, including the governor’s office, Division of Administration and the various cabinet positions.
Please provide documentation and/or any and all public records that provides a breakdown of premium payments for LSU First, including employer/employee contributions and including which employer, i.e. the state, the House or Senate or LSU, pays the employer contributions.
Now that we have requested actual documents/records, we’ll see how they respond.
We did glean from the MOU, however, that the Legislature most likely is responsible for paying 70 percent of the premiums for legislators, legislative retirees, and staff members.
Meanwhile, Jindal communications officer Mike Reed, a native of Boston (Jindal apparently cannot find qualified Louisiana residents for these jobs), churned out a fact sheet that Commissioner of Administration Kristy Kreme Nichols proudly published verbatim as her own work as via an op-ed piece in today’s (Thursday’s) Baton Rouge Advocate under the heading Changes Good for Insurance Users, Taxpayers. (A hint, Kristy: U.S. Democratic Sen. John Walsh of Montana recently dropped out of his race for re-election after allegations of plagiarism.)
As for Reed, we can only hope that if he returns to Boston he doesn’t offer his services to the Red Sox. Mired in last place in the American League East, the Sox have enough problems without taking on another pitch man who can’t seem to find the strike zone.
Reed’s press release was directed at a recent well-researched column by political writer Jeremy Alford: For Health Care Woes, Jindal Prescribes Confusion. http://lapolitics.com/2014/09/for-health-care-woes-jindal-prescribes-confusion/
Reed sent the “fact sheet,” entitled Setting the Record Straight: LaPolitics Column on Healthcare reform in Louisiana, to state legislators on Wednesday. The four page letter was peppered with what Reed smugly, if inaccurately, described as “myth” followed by “Facts.”
Of course, being from Boston, it goes without saying that Reed is intimately familiar with all the nuances of Louisiana politics, including the sordid history of the administration’s recent health care issues. These include Jindal’s sticking his nose into the OGB operations and firing Director Tommy Teague who had taken the agency from a $60 million deficit to a $500 million fund balance, closing down or giving away state hospitals, the governor’s refusal of Medicaid expansion which led directly to problems at Baton Rouge General which last week announced it was closing its emergency room, forcing the administration to pump $18 million into the private hospital to keep its ER open to indigent patients forced to travel to the mid-city facility after closure of state-run Earl K. Long Hospital.
Undaunted, Reed waded into the fray, dutifully blaming everything on Obamacare just as his absentee boss would have him do. And Kristy Kreme eagerly published the tome under her byline.
https://webmail.east.cox.net/do/mail/message/view?msgId=INBOXDELIM16848
The whole thing evokes images to go with one of our favorite Sinatra songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1fVQGESUTo
Louisiana Voice 
Best picture I’ve seen of Jindal in a long time!!
For concerned state employees and retirees!
Funny, the clown smile looks much more sincere than that cat who ate the canary grin he usually pastes on his face. I hope that all state workers could transfer over to the LSU plan but I don’t see that happening. Good luck to all active and retired state workers in overcoming the consummate evil that is the Swindal Administration.
I’m no fan of the Jindalistas, but the Division stated the premiums are not going up at all. Yes co – pays are going up, more plans will have deductibles & the MAXIMUM out of pocket is going up 47% I believe. An OGB employee said that only 3% of plan members hit the max…
That wouldn’t have been Ms. West, would it?
So that 3% of 260,000 individual(s) or about 7,800 individuals might lose everything they worked for their whole lives for: security and good health care. They wither will not have the security to afford food, clothing, warmth in the winter or coolness in the summer or they will not be able to afford health care or Rx because they can’t afford both. More elderly in the welfare lines with no answer in sight and on the street like you might see in New York, Chicago or other large Cities. And Jitler will be long gone with Kristy Kreme right behind him with Edmonson chauffeuring and securing the pathway for them all.
JB, you are correct that Premiums are not going up in January, but that is only because they were just raised last month. And Tom has a typo in saying that premiums are going up 47%, The 47% increase has to do with out-of-pocket costs, but I am not sure how it was calculated. No matter what the percentage is, with deductibles being added or increasing and HMO copays going up, we are all going to pay more. And probably a lot more people will hit the new higher Out-Of-Pocket maximums.
JB, you need to be very careful about accepting anything the Administration says as truth. One of my favorites is Kristy Kreme contending that vision coverage hasn’t changed. Routine refractions used to be paid as part of the HMO and PPO OGB plans. Now you have to sign up for third party vision coverage, and probably pay a significant premium, if want help paying those bills. Only in the Conservative alternate reality are these two situations the same.
And increased premiums are not necessarily bad.
1. Swindle forced the OGB board to reduce premiums below what their actuary told them was necessary for fiscal stability. When there was the engineered shortage, the reserve fund made up the shortfall. Because the state had to pay less, with the too low premiums, this effectively converted the reserve into general state budget funds in violation of the constitution.
2. While it would be a sizable increase, the actuary has probably already calculated what premium level would be necessary to stop draining the OGB reserve. And remember that the state will pay 75% of the employee’s premium and 50% for family members.
3. My guess is that my cost for a premium that would support about the current level of benefits would probably be less than what I am looking to pay in increased Out-Of-Pocket expenses, under these new plans.
4. And increased premiums would be a fixed expense out of each paycheck instead of requiring increased deductibles to be paid at the beginning of the year before I get any benefit from the health plan.
And finally, lets not forget that this is the result of Swindle implementing the conservative Shock Doctrine as described by Naomi Kline:
1. Create a fiscal crisis (depress OGB premiums)
2. Use the created crisis as an excuse to make otherwise UNACCEPTABLE changes in benefits.
Call your state representative and senator to make sure they know that this is the last straw. If they don’t fix this, we need to do everything in our power to make sure they follow Swindle out the door next year!!!
Further, and more significant evidence of this abuse of power. And, now we learn of the favoritism with the Legislator and its staff.
Legislators, listen, take heed. The people are learning of this gross mismanagement of OGB, and the fact that Jindal wants state employees, teachers, and retired state employees and teachers to pay over $100 million in additional costs the next year (who says Jindal refused to raise taxes?).
You are all up for re-election exactly one year from now.
Speak out on this and do something to fix it!
If you do not, you will be turned away from office. You will not be re-elected!
I contacted a few of the members of the Appropriations Committee about my concerns with OGB. One responder noted that I “was not in his district” but offered the explanation that the governor did it solo. See, our legislators are blameless!! We have the dictator to blame.
Why don’t you identify the one who said you were not in his district? These guys need to be outed.
Here’s the body of the email I received from Rep. Armes:
“I am on the Appropriations committee and have been witness to this administration continually taking money from OGB. I have opposed it at every opportunity, but the bottom line is the Governor can do this without the approval of anyone. As a legislator, I am offered LSU First and do participate in it. My co-pays and medicines have increased without notice also.
Since you do not live in my district, I know you would want to get input from your legislator…”
I just read Rep. Armes reply to you. He was not deflecting your concerns, just suggesting that you also contact your legislator. He articulated his own concerns with the OGB fund drawdown and correctly said Jindal can do that without legislative consent.
But as a body, the legislature can stand up to Jindal, make the drawdown a public issue and force his hand to either admit what he is doing or back down. I believe Armes is on our side on this and is just as frustrated as we are.
I sent emails to mine, Franklin Foil and Dan Claitor. I received a reply from Errin in Franklin Foils’ office. She sent me an “information sheet” from the Division of Administration and said she would be sure to share my concerns with the Representative. I have never heard from Dan Claitor. I’m sure he is too busy campaigning. I surely hope he is not expecting a vote from me or my family.
Mine are Franklin Foil and Dan Claitor as well. I’ve attempted to contact them in the past and received nothing from Claitor and a form “sorry, but I can’t help you” response from Foil. I agree that Claitor is likely too busy campaigning to respond since he didn’t last time either. He was newly elected and I assume was not going to be worried about his constituents for a few years. I hope it’s not too late to ease this awful mess.
Note the time for watching. Guess they don’t want people doing a webinar post mortem on company time:
OGB Annual Enrollment Webinar for Active Employees and non-Medicare Retirees
We’re hosting webinars throughout September and October. Register for the date and time that’s most convenient for you.
DATE TIME
Monday, Sept. 15 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Wednesday, Sept. 17 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Monday, Sept. 22 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Wednesday, Sept. 24 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Monday, Sept. 29 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Monday, Oct. 27 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
I wonder which health plan all the retired legislators that Jindal appointed to various agencies have.
Did they get to keep their LSU plan?
Or did they have to enroll in OGB?
I feel sure they have the option to stay with the LSU plan since they aren’t classified employees.
My story points out that once they leave the legislature for other endeavors, they are eligible to remain in the LSU First plan.
Thanks Tom, I missed that the first go around.
and just think, Jindal wants to privatize the health care of the Veterans Admin. ron thompson
I agree with Mr. Aswell that Rep. Armes (in response to post by SRIRACHA) is probably sympathetic. My family members and I who are State retirees/employees have received replies to our letters from about 5 or 6 members of the Legislature, mostly all of whom are NOT our Legislators (we are not in their respective Districts). Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) [not our Rep.] is the one who called for the meeting of the Appropriations Committee on Sept. 25 to discuss this matter. Our Senator’s office did respond and sent us info. that had been given to them by OGB, but again, they probably are as much in the dark as we are at this point and were just trying to be helpful. We got an interesting e-mail this morning from one Rep. who sent us the September 2014 Newsletter of the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana (A+PEL) which points out that A+PEL has been monitoring the situation since these changes were first proposed to the Policy & Planning Board of the Office of Group Benefits in July, 2014 and goes on to further state that “Unfortunately, the information released by the Department of Administration and the Legislative Fiscal Office are in conflict” and then details that information. Sorry but I don’t know how to post links, but if you go to their website, you can find the complete newsletter. Another Rep. actually called me after receiving his letter, but I was not home; however, I think it says a lot that he would take the time and expense to call someone who isn’t even a constituent after receiving the letter. It’s just SO IMPORTANT THAT THE LEGISLATURE BE CONTACTED ABOUT THIS because as Mr. Aswell says, “the legislature can stand up to Jindal, make the drawdown a public issue and force his hand to either admit what he is doing or back down.”
.
I should have done so sooner, but I just now wrote to Sen. Bret Allain and Rep. Dee Richard. We’ll see.
Tom, is the cartoon yours? It is excellent.
Response to my email from Rep. Jerome (Dee) Richard:
“thank you for sharing thoughts; I will give you mine next week after I meet w the OGB folks. dee”
I recall considering a transfer to OGB during Foster’s term but was warned by a senior Senator that Foster was then attempting to outsource OGB. I heeded that warning and stayed where I was. The media later reported Foster’s efforts and that that idea had been objected to by many legislators, resulting in its burial. I guess that’s when Foster made the move to allow our Legislators and their overpaid/underworked staff to migrate to the LSU system. Jindal has always seemed to be Foster’s puppet (or clown,) so it sounds like he’s still doing as directed and making Foster smile.
From a recent NOLA/Times Picayune article, “…According to West, state workers health insurance options will still be quite generous when compared to those offered by private employers in the region…”
Well, Ms. West, that would be just fine, but reasonable, decent health insurance was one of the reasons many civil servants opted to dedicate their career to a lower paying job.
If she’s going to compare our insurance cost to the private sector, she should retroactively adjust our salaries and retirement to mirror that of the private sector as well.
Our benefits were slashed under Jindal, for the out if state people. We no longer have out of network benefits, which is a killer for these folks who can’t always find in-network providers.
I think all OGB members should be allowed to go the LSU plan…….we should be allowed to join whatever plan the Gov. and Legislature has………..as I’m sure he would not allow this debacle to occur in his health plan……..he’s not stupid! LOL He just thinks everyone else is! LOL The Gov./Legislature needs to get this corrected or heads need to roll at election time!
may not be a very good idea for out of state retirees. At present, Mr. Jindal eliminated the out of state benefit altogether. Would this be the same by going to another plan?