Louisiana Voice

“If the message were to go out with complete objectivity, it would be disastrous for Trump. So, he is doing his best to prevent experts from speaking out or using their expertise, and he’s simply trying to divert attention… It will work for some people, but he can’t get over the fact that many, many people are dying — and they’re dying on his watch. Too many people are dying, and that’s the fact that he can’t cover up however much he tries.”

—Political science professor Max Skidmore, on Donald Trump’s efforts to silence officials who disagree with him, downplay the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, and to dismiss statistics that don’t square with his demands to reopen the economy.

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It’s been nine years now that LouisianaVoice has existed as a means of shining a light on political wrongdoings, mismanagement, corruption and general shenanigans and otherwise questionable activities.

There have been times when I was privileged to have broken a significant story. Other posts might be classified as filler, nitpicking or just general bitching about how those in guv-mint power are trying to slip it to us mere mortals.

That’s because I believed—and continue to believe—that elected officials, rather than responding to the wishes of constituents, give far more favor to the desires of special interests. Those special interests have a knack for helping politicians understand just how special those interests are by writing checks with lots of zeroes.

When I launched LouisianaVoice, the primary impetus was Bobby Jindal’s attempts to privatize the Louisiana Office of Group Benefits which administers health insurance benefits for state employees.

On top of those efforts, Jindal “reduced” premiums in order that the state might also be able to reduce its matching share of premiums. That move was not one to benefit state employees; it was to allow Jindal to pull the savings on the state’s premium to help plug the gaping hole in the state budget.

The harmful side-effect, of course, was to gut the $600 million fund from which OGB was paying benefits to the point of virtually zeroing out the balance.

I wrote extensively about Jindal’s fiscal not-so-sleight-of-hand and more or less got myself removed from Jindal’s Christmas card list.

Well, guess what? They’re back trying to tinker with OGB again with House Bill 325 (CLICK HERE) by Rep. Michael Echols (R-Monroe), which is being opposed by the Retired State Employees Association because the RSEA feels it restricts freedom of choice for retirees.

Basically, HB325 “provides that if a state or school district retiree without dependants (sic) elects to enroll in Medicare Parts A and B, his continued participation in Office of Group Benefits (OGB) health plans is limited to Medicare Advantage Plans only.”

The bill would retain the portion of the present law which authorizes state employees to participate in the federally-managed Medicare program but would restrict continued coverage by retirees who have elected to enroll in Medicare Parts A and B to participation in a Medicare Advantage Plan.

So, what, exactly does that mean?

It means that retirees already on a Medicare Advantage plan would not be affected but those with no dependents who are not participating in one would be required to enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan such as People’s Health, Aetna, Cigna, and (ahem) Vantage Health Plan.

So, what’s the big deal about Vantage Health Plan, you say?

Well, nothing. Except that Rep. Echols just happens to be director of business development for Vantage.

Dr. Patrick Jones is CEO of Vantage Health Plan and Vantage Holdings.

He is also Rep. Echols’s father-in-law.

On Sept. 6, 2018, Vantage Health Plan entered into a contract with OGB to provide HMO services for state employees. The value of that contract is $140.5 million.

Seven weeks later, on Oct. 29, 2018, Vantage Health Plan signed a contract with OGB to provide Medicare Advantage plans for Medicare-eligible OGB members. The value of that contract was $12 million.

Rep. Echols and his immediate family members collectively own 1.58% of Vantage Holdings, well below the 25% ownership deemed to be a “controlling interest” by the Louisiana Commission of Governmental Ethics.

An ethics opinion (CLICK HERE) Echols by David Bordelon, dated March 9, 2020, however, said, “Your duties as Director of Business Development include no involvement, control, or authority regarding any aspect of the contract with OGB. You stated that you are paid a salary and that you received no direct financial benefit, such as a commission, as a result of the Vantage contract with OGB. Further, your father-in-law, Dr. Patrick Jones, has stated that his compensation is unaffected by the OGB contract.”

[And I suppose any increase in the stock price of Vantage as the result of a lucrative state contract would not “affect” any compensation received by either man.]

But never mind, he’s got something that the garden variety state employee doesn’t have: legislative immunity.

Bordelon’s five-page opinion noted that “Generally, the various provisions (of state ethics laws) would prohibit you from participating in matter in which you, your father-in-law, or Vantage Health Plan, Inc. have a substantial economic interest.”

But then he went to explain that a court opinion back in 2008 ruled that the “Legislative Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Louisiana Constitution…provides protection to a legislator when acting in his legislative capacity against a potential violation.”

As the Church Lady character on Saturday Night Live used to say, “How convenient.”

Keep in mind just what impact any opinion by the Ethics Commission actually means since Bobby Jindal “reformed” state ethics in 2008 as one of his first acts after taking office. Pending ethics complaints against at least two legislators (one of whom is now a college president) immediately went away.

And one doesn’t have to look too far to see how this bill, if passed, could be a windfall for state-approved Medicare Advantage companies like Vantage.

It’s not as though Vantage didn’t already know how to game the system before getting its director of business development elected to the state legislature.

Way back in 2014, LouisianaVoice had a story about how Sens. Neil Riser (R-Columbia), Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe), Rick Gallot (D-Ruston), and Francis Thompson (D-Delhi) steered SB 216 through the legislature that allowed Vantage Health Plan to purchase the state-owned former Virginia Hotel at 122 St. John Street in Monroe without going through the state bid process even though there was at least one other potential buyer.

Documents obtained by LouisianaVoice at the time clearly showed how the bid process was circumvented by the Jindal administration in order to allow Vantage to purchase the property. Click HERE to read that entire story.

Since 2007, the year of Jindal’s first successful run for governor, political contributions have flowed from Vantage, Dr. Jones and his wife and Echols.

During that period, Vantage poured $130,000 into various state campaigns while Jones and his wife contributed $52,000 and Echols chipped in $8,500.

Among the recipients:

• From Vantage: Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon ($11,500), Gov. John Bel Edwards ($15,000), Bobby Jindal ($1,000), Sen. Neil Riser ($3,000), former Sen. Mike Walsworth ($5,000), and Rep. Francis Thompson, a member of the House Appropriations Committee which will hear HB325 ($5,100).
• From Dr. Patrick and Mary F. Jones: Donelon ($3,000), Gov. Edwards ($10,500), Jindal ($15,000), Riser ($500), Thompson ($9,000), Walsworth ($3,000).
• From Echols: Jindal ($950) and Eddie Rispone ($2,500).

Sorry folks, but HB325 just doesn’t pass the smell test.

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Remember Napster?

That was the service where you could download just about any song ever recorded for free.

Until, that is, the peer-to-peer service was sued by the recording industry for copyright infringement and was shut down on July 11, 2001 Lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit were the band Metallica and singer Roy Orbison’s widow, Barbara Orbison.

And why not? After all, it’s only right that artists, like anyone else, be compensated for their works. As essential as food is during the coronavirus quarantine, those truck drivers who deliver our food expect—and deserve—to be paid as do those who stock the shelves and the cashiers who check us out.

Health care is critical but the doctors and nurses still have to get paid.

And while not as crucial to our survival, book authors also deserve to be paid for their labor.

So why is it that the literary equivalent to Napster is allowed to pirate the works of authors so the rest of us can pass the time reading books for free while confined to our homes?

That is precisely what the so-called “NATIONAL EMERGENCY LIBRARY” is doing.

And that’s why the Authors Guild is fighting back—to protect the rights of authors who receive no royalties whenever their books are downloaded from the National Emergency Library, which describes itself as “a temporary collection of books that supports emergency remote teaching, research, independent scholarship, and intellectual stimulation while universities, schools, training centers, and libraries are closed.”

Let’s be clear: Internet Archive’s so-called “National Emergency Library” is not a real library,” reads a LETTER from the Authors Guild to Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive board of directors. “Real libraries license the electronic books they circulate, and authors receive payments from those licenses. Real libraries do not circulate unauthorized copies. Real libraries care about authors as much as they do about promoting knowledge and literacy.

“Let’s be even more clear: Internet Archive’s prior practice of providing access through Open Library to one reader at a time per copy is itself infringing of most in-copyright books—and illegal,” the letter said. “Now, by declaring a spurious ‘copyright emergency’ and making a massive trove of copyrighted books available for free without any restrictions, Internet Archive has demonstrated a shocking disrespect for the rule of law— the cornerstone of our civil, democratic society—at a time when we most need it to prevail. You cloak your illegal scanning and distribution of books behind the pretense of magnanimously giving people access to them. But giving away what is not yours is simply stealing, and there is nothing magnanimous about that. Authors and publishers—the rights owners who legally can give their books away—are already working to provide electronic access to books to libraries and the people who need them. We do not need Internet Archive to give our works away for us.

“Books exist because authors write them, and good books take a good deal of hard work and time. Authors need to earn a living to be able to write, and they deserve to be paid for their work like any other worker. The pandemic is severely impacting authors and booksellers. Bookstores and libraries have closed, and book sales are down. The freelance writing assignments and speaking engagements that many authors rely on to supplement their income are unavailable, and yet authors are not eligible for traditional unemployment. (Indeed, thus far, they have even been excluded from the Pandemic Unemployment Insurance meant to assist freelancers, and the Authors Guild is actively lobbying to correct that.)”

The letter is accompanied by an online PETITION for advocates to sign and send to Kahle and the Internet Archive board.

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If Trump had run the Manhattan Project….

“After two months, he would have congratulated himself for a ‘phenomenal job,’ wound down his atomic task force and left the whole nuclear thing to the states.

“Texas would compete with Florida for uranium, while New Jersey and Ohio bid up plutonium prices.

“New York, making bombs, wouldn’t be in touch with Washington state, which would be retrofitting the B-29 without specs.

“Robert Oppenheimer, complaining about the lack of coordination, would be demoted and denied whistleblower protection.

“The bombs wouldn’t work properly in tests, the bombers would take off without enough fuel,  

“Trump would blame the governor of Michigan — and we’d all be speaking Japanese.”

—Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, May 6, 2020.

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