The news release by last September said that former Gov. Bobby Jindal had been appointed to the board of directors of by Wellcare Health Plans, Inc., of Tampa, Florida.
Yawn. Ho-hum. Has LouisianaVoice become so desperate for stories that it resurrects a nine-month-old news release?
Well, things have been a little slow of late. Even the recently-adjourned legislative session failed to generate any surprises other than the usual parties, dinners at Baton Rouge’s most expensive restaurants and hobnobbing with lobbyists to the general detriment of constituents, i.e. Louisiana citizens.
But it has long been my contention that when one peels back a few layers from the cover story, one will usually find the real story. After all, a July 2016 LouisianaVoice STORY turned up a link between Jindal and a lucrative state contract for another company that had appointed him to its board.
Accordingly, I went looking a little deeper and YOWSER! Sha-ZAM!
It seems that appointment of Jindal, described in the news release as one “who has dedicated his career to public service and advancing innovative healthcare polices,” appears to have been payback for services rendered while he was governor.
Documents obtained from the Louisiana Department of Health show that CENTENE, a major U.S. health insurer, is the parent company of Louisiana Healthcare Connections, Inc., which was awarded a contract for nearly $1 billion with the Louisiana Department of Hospitals in September 2011, just a month before Jindal’s reelection to a second term.
The contract called for Louisiana Healthcare Connections to perform “a broad range of services necessary for the delivery of health care services to Medicaid enrollees…”
That contract was to run from February 1, 2012, through January 31, 2015.
On January 19, 2015, the contract was renewed for another three years, to run through January 31, 2018. The contract amount was increased from the original $926 million to $1.9 billion.
But just before Jindal left office, on December 1, 2015, that contract was amended from $1.9 billion to $3.9 billion, perhaps in anticipation that incoming Gov. John Bel Edwards would keep his promise to expand Medicaid under Obamacare—which he did.
In March of this year, USA Today published a STORY that Centene (Louisiana Healthcare Connections parent company, remember) would purchase WellCare Health Plans, Inc. for $17.3 billion.
It would be most interesting to see if Jindal netted a windfall from that transaction, coming as it did only six months after he was named to WellCare Health Plans’ board.
It’s unknown just how long negotiations had been ongoing between Centene and WellCare Health Plans, but the timing does open the door for speculation that the doubling of the Louisiana Healthcare Connections contract, Jindal’s appointment to the WellCare Health Plan board and Centene’s purchase of WellCare are more than coincidental.
To add a little spice to the recipe of Louisiana political gumbo, they’re also a few interesting campaign contributions.
- On March 11, 2011, just six months before Louisiana Healthcare was awarded that initial contract for $926 million, WellCare of Louisiana, a subsidiary of WellCare Health Plans, contributed $5,000 to Jindal’s reelection campaign.
- On January 17, 2012, only two weeks before its initial contract took effect, Louisiana Healthcare Connections gave Jindal $5,000.
- Louisiana Healthcare’s parent company, Centene, gave Jindal $5,000 on January 17, 2012 (the same date as Louisiana Healthcare’s contribution). Centene gave him another $5,000 on November 19, 2012 and still another $5,000 back on August 14, 2008, eight months after Jindal first moved into the governor’s office.
- Oh, and the New Orleans law firm of McGlinchey Stafford, the registered agent for Louisiana Healthcare, gave Jindal $1,000 on September 23, 2003; $5,000 on October 30, 2003; $5,000 on April 6, 2007, and $5,000 on March 2, 2011.
- On April 23, 2009, Centene’s then Chairman and CEO Michael Neidorff kicked in $3,000 to Jindal.
It would seem that Bobby Jindal is perfectly willing to skirt a few ethical standards in order to ensure that life after politics can continue to benefit from life while in politics.
So, you see, even the most mundane news release can carry a wealth of information if one is willing to follow a convoluted path to the ultimate source of the money.
Louisiana Voice 
Your so busy slamming President Trump you leave others alone, your like the dems so busy looking at the negative fake news you can’t see the forest for the trees 🌲 in your own eyes. President Trump has stabilized the economy, unemployment is at its lowest rate in years, big companies moving plant into America, Mexico is starting to stop the migrant influx and many other positive things. Take the ear plugs and the log in your eyes and look at the positive, I know that hard for your liberal brain but, less give support. He may really make America great again if we give him a chance. Thanks you for time.
Where to start. First of all, the post to which you’re responding said not a single word about Trump, not one. Second, since you brought him up, he promised to help farmers and factory workers. Instead, he has delivered a body blow to farmers with his tariffs and he has failed to bring factory jobs back as promised—just as he failed to get Mexico to pay for the wall. You accuse me of being liberal but I thought it was the conservatives who were against communism. Yet, your boy is embracing Kim Jung Un and Putin. You’ve got to square that away before I listen to your rant.
Second, if you’re going to post something, please learn a little grammar. “Your” is a possessive pronoun. “You’re” is the proper contraction for “you are.” Please learn the difference.
Finally, in the future, please respond to the subject of my post—or don’t respond.
Why we love you, Tom! Lol!
Well you know the old saying: Don’t let the door hit ya…
The jindal administration was rank with corruption. The huge contracts to private companies that then failed to perform were legion and well known. Other self-serving legislation and business deals sailed through. Plenty of information was provided to the watchdog agencies, which ignored obvious, out in the open, often illegal privatization. And yet, with the exception of one State Police superintendent, jindal and rest of his minions skated scot free. If state and federal law enforcement had investigated him and his administration, the prisons would be full of jindalistas. But he lives high in his mansion, sends his kids to expensive schools, and his only visible means of support is from high paid board positions. The people of Louisiana paid dearly for the corruption and mismanagement of the jindal era. As a state, and many individuals, we are paying still.
Appointments to corporate boards are NEVER without thought or reasons that will not benefit both sides of the table. Bobby Jindal sold Louisiana’s health care, mental health care facilities, and education to the highest bidders with total disdain for the public welfare of the state. His cronies, many still occupying legislative seats, continue the damage.
Excellent job of finding the dirt beneath many layers.
I am not surprised by this information. I worked in the healthcare sector of Louisiana State government for more than 30 years. I can tell you the last years of Jindal’s term, we were burdened with contracted systems services that poorly provided the services our patients needed and required staff to utilize poorly designed computer systems in addition to the institution systems of our agencies. Truly it was a nightmarish situation for our staff.
Thank you for clarifying a mystifying situation that we, as employees, could not comprehend at the time.
Learned a new word “jindalistas’ I am still loving Jindalites now that we are back in the Mideast lying and trying to provoke bedlam. Name one Presidential candidate (although temporary) Trump did not cut out. Jindal.. We should be proud of him. And he readily convince us he could do everything by lying and we fell for it. Add in the religious, make that irreligious right, and be proud that we can now have a government they hate telling us how to procreate. I remember from church that lust was a sin. God how we have evolved. love always and keep the faith. (keep your faith to yourself, according to Archie Bunker, my second favorite prophet) ron thompson
This is the same “reformer“ who implemented a required yearly ethics training for all public employees in Louisiana such as educators. Of course, we all know that public-school teachers have been robbing Louisiana blind and something just had to be done to hold them accountable. Meanwhile, Jindal and his fat cat cronies, aided and abetted by LABI and ALEC, were fleecing the people of Louisiana for billions of dollars. But at least no underhanded teacher was accepting anything more valuable than an apple as influence peddling.