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Round 2 in joint legislative committee hearings on administration’s OGB contract scheduled for Friday

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization on November 8, 2012| 9 Comments »

If observers thought that Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols was a little miffed at the unexpected turn of events at last week’s joint meeting of the House Appropriations and the Senate Finance committees, perhaps they would have liked to have been a fly on the wall Thursday afternoon.

Reports indicate that Nichols and staff were still scrambling to compile support documentation during an 11th-hour planning session before Friday’s second joint meeting of the two committees.

The meeting is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Friday at the State Capitol.

Last week’s meeting ended when she abruptly pulled the proposal from the agenda after the two committees had been meeting for just over four hours. She claimed the move was to provide legislators additional information but everyone—including Nichols—knew her move was a calculated one after she realized there were not enough votes in the Appropriations Committee to push the contract through.

Concurrence by both the House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees is required for concurrence on the proposed contract.

Within hours of the meeting, two Appropriations Committee members who had thrown hard questions at Nichols, who was making her debut before legislators as Jindal’s new commissioner of administration, were replaced by House Speaker Chuck “Chicken Klucker” Kleckley (R-Lake Charles), apparently as a warning to the remaining members that they should fall in line or suffer the wrath of the Piyush Jindal administration.

It remains to be seen if the move will whip the other 14 Appropriations members who last week voted against the administration in line or if it will stiffen their resolve to assert their independence of the governor’s office and re-establish the legislature as a separate branch of government instead of an extension of the governor’s office as it has been for nearly five years now.

The new flurry of activity apparently stems from Nichols’ attempts to figure out how State Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) arrived at numbers that sharply contrast with the administration’s estimate of a $20 million savings with its proposed contract that calls for Blue Cross/Blue Shield to take over as third party administrator (TPA) for the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) preferred provider organization (PPO) program.

Jackson, using figures provided the legislature during the budgetary process, has calculated that the takeover by BCBS, instead of saving the $20 million, as the administration claims, will actually cost the state more than $154.8 million even as it costs more than 100 OGB employees their jobs.

She said that figures provided legislators during the budgetary process this year project a $24 million decrease in OGB’s administrative costs, a decrease of nearly $558 million in the PPO claims payments and a decrease of $3.5 million to United Behavioral health for disease management.

That totals about $585.2 million against a $740 million increase in administrative fee payments to BCBS, or $154.8 million in additional costs.

Other issues that could arise is the 10-day notice requirement for committee meetings. Jackson maintains that Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro) did not provide the required notice to committee members and to the public.

Fannin has not responded to her objection.

One other question that could come up revolves around the bid by BCBC, which experts say will cost the state $15 million more than the bid of United Healthcare.

Sources have indicated that United Healthcare is prepared to file a lawsuit against the state if the contract with BCBS is approved and goes into effect in January.

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Romney loss is (he thinks) the perfect opportunity for Piyush presidential run so don’t look for him here for next 3 years

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Prison, Privatization on November 7, 2012| 7 Comments »

Mitt Romney’s loss to President Obama on Tuesday may have provided the perfect opportunity for Gov. Piyush Jindal and de facto governor Timmy Teepell (or so they must certainly be thinking right about now).

Sure, Jindal did the dutiful thing and ran around the country like the proverbial chicken with its head chopped off, talking to throngs of avid Romney supporters that sometimes numbered as many as a dozen or so.

And sure, he said all the right things at those massive gatherings.

But deep down, you have to know that Jindal and Teepell are smirking just a little right now and have already begun their drive to the White House for 2016.

Jindal is an impatient man as witnessed by his rush to push through a radical education agenda and his attempt to completely revamp the state retirement system even though his plan would have cut some state employees’ pensions by as much as 85 percent (and the vast majority of state employees do not qualify for social security because they have never worked in the private sector and state employees don’t pay into the system).

Nor will the vast majority of state employees qualify for Medicare for the same reason. But that fact did nothing to stop him from slashing Medicaid.

Jindal also rushed through his plan to privatize state government, beginning with the ill-fated takeover of the Office of Risk Management by F.A. Richard and Associates (FARA) of Mandeville at an initial contract cost of $68 million to the state. Eight months into its contract, FARA was requesting a $6.8 million amendment to its contract. That was precisely 10 percent of the original contract amount. There is an obscure regulation that allows a one-time amendment to contracts for up to—you guessed it—10 percent.

But wait! There’s more! Less than a month after the contract was bumped up to nearly $75 million, FARA upped and sold the contract to an Ohio company who kept it for about four months before selling it to a New York company.

There was a hitch in all those transactions but again, did it slow Jindal down? Not a bit. That hitch was a clause in the FARA contract that supposedly prohibited the transfer of the contract without prior written approval of the Division of Administration (DOA). When asked for a copy of that prior written approval, DOA responded without a shred of concern and even less of an explanation that no such document existed.

Jindal has plowed headlong into a policy of closing state hospitals with little or no concern of the effects it has to area residents who rely on the hospitals for treatment of injuries, disease and mental illness.

He has been similarly reckless in his closures of state prisons, throwing hundreds of state employees out of work. In both the hospital and prison closures, he has neglected to give area legislators a heads-up before taking the action to close the facilities, an oversight over which lawmakers continue to seethe.

He has attempted with equal urgency to enter into a contract with Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) as a third party administrator (TPA) for the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) medical coverage for about 62,000 state employees, retirees and dependents.

Facing certain defeat of the proposed contract at the hands of the House Appropriations Committee last week, Jindal’s new Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols abruptly pulled the proposal from the agenda of the joint meeting between the Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.

It was a less than auspicious coming out party for his new commissioner of administration. A smashing debut for Nichols it was not.

But the administration is back for another attempt this Friday at 8:30 a.m. The makeup of the Appropriations Committee will be slightly different, however, after last week’s Black Friday purge of the committee by Jindal.

And make no mistake, while it was House Speaker Chuck “Genuflecting Gelding” Kleckley (R-Lake Charles) who announced the removal of Reps. Cameron Henry of Metairie and Joseph Harrison of Gray, the word came from Jindal—or Teepell. Both Henry and Harrison are Republicans but both also violated the cardinal rule against questioning anything put before them by Pontiff Piyush.

Harrison said as much when he revealed that the administration historically provides questions to committee members that they are allowed to ask. At the same time, he said, they are instructed not to deviate from the list by asking any questions other than those on the list.

So now Jindal is making one final push to get his contract with BCBS approved.

It’s doubtful he will make a personal appearance; he almost always sends his flunkies to carry the water for him.

It’s also doubtful if Nichols will repeat last week’s faux pas of tell committee members she would “dumb down” her explanation of the proposed contract for the benefit of lawmakers. It’s one thing to close a hospital or prison without informing the legislators in the area. It’s quite another to sit before them and call them dumb to their faces.

The point of all this is this: don’t look for Piyush in Baton Rouge in the remaining three-plus years of his term of office. He’s not likely to be spending much time in his fourth floor office.

A quick drive through on Wednesday revealed that Teepell’s Jeep was parked—as always—in the back parking lot of the State Capitol. This is a former Jindal staff member who resigned more than a year ago to run the Southern office of OnMessage, a Maryland political consulting firm. OnMessage has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Jindal’s campaign fund over recent years but more than a year after Teepell opened that Baton Rouge office, there still is no local address or telephone number for the firm.

If Teepell is doing anything at all for OnMessage, he is doing it—as a private citizen—from the State Capitol’s fourth floor governor’s office. We have mentioned this on at least two other occasions but still the attorney general and the inspector general’s offices have done nothing to bring the misuse of the public office for private purposes to an end.

But the boy wonder we know as Piyush is about to hit the road in a fundraising blitz that will, in all likelihood, dwarf that of his re-election fundraising efforts of a year ago.

He is going to be running full time for president and he is an impatient man. He did not want to wait eight years wasting his valuable time in some obscure federally appointed position in the Romney administration (though doubtless he would have taken a higher profile position if it could keep his name in the forefront). He will serve next year as head of the National Republican Governor’s Association. That will keep his name out there while he ramps up his fundraising efforts.

Now, though, he can hold to the office (in theory if not in reality) of governor of Louisiana for three years while keeping his travel itinerary full. His term will end in January, 2016—just in time for him to become a full time candidate.

Even as he does so, however, there is a significant lesson to be learned from Tuesday’s results—a lesson quite likely overlooked by JindalTeepell.

The Democrats learned from the Reagan landslides that it was going to have to move from the far left more towards the center in order to gain the acceptance and trust of the American electorate. It did and the result was Bill Clinton.

Likewise, to gain the trust of the American people, the Republican Party is going to have shed itself of the stigma it now carries as a refuge for the Tea Partiers. Simply put, the GOP is going to have to shift away from the right right, becoming less a haven for the extremists with more appeal to the centrists.

Unfortunately for Piyush (and perhaps fortunately for the rest of us), he seems incapable of making such a shift. He has shown himself to be stubborn, obstinate and convinced of his own infallability. He is simply unwilling to compromise and that, in the end, will be his undoing.

In the meantime, don’t look for him in Baton Rouge during the next three years.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Privatization, Teague on November 2, 2012| 2 Comments »

“Everything they (legislative committees) do is scripted. I’ve seen the scripts. They hand out a list of questions we are allowed to ask and they tell us not to deviate from the list and not to ask questions that are not in the best interest of the administration.”

—Rep. Joseph Harrison (R-Gray), on his removal from the House Appropriations Committee by House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles) on Friday, one day after Harrison voted against the Jindal administration on the proposed contract between the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana (BCBS).

“I was elected by the people of (House) District 82 on a platform of fiscal responsibility. It is the job of legislators…to ask difficult questions necessary to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently and wisely.”

—Rep. Cameron Henry (R-Metairie), on his removal from the House Appropriations Committee on which he served as vice-chairman following his vote against the Jindal administration on the proposed OGB contract.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Notable Quotables, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, State Agencies, Transparency on November 2, 2012| 3 Comments »

“A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

—Louisiana Federation of Teachers legislative director Mary Patricia Wray, quoting one of her high school teachers in her testimony Thursday before two legislative committees, in describing the lack of planning and accountability on the part of the Piyush Jindal administration’s proposal to contract with Blue Cross/Blue Shield for the administration of the Office of Group Benefits’ Preferred Provider Organization.

“A policy must not be to identify an emergency which government has either created or failed to prevent and then find a public servant to blame and punish while we promote so-called reform.”

—Mary Patricia Wray, during that same testimony.

“Policy makers keep finding more and more creative ways and more and more sorry excuses to support corporate tax avoidance over public good, privatizing over restoraton and feel-good initiatives over real solutions for our very, very valuable public insititutions.”

—Mary Patricia Wray, on a roll as she ripped into the Piyush administration during her testimony.

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OGB opponents of BCBS contract savor π-yush crash and burn following four-hour committee hearing on Thursday

Posted in Budget, Civil Service, Contract, Contracts, Economy, Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization on November 2, 2012| 6 Comments »

Lyndon Johnson once said he had no use for any politician who, 30 seconds after entering a crowded room, could not tell who was for him and who was against him.

He would have little use for Gov. Piyush Jindal, the governor’s hand-picked committee chairmen or his chief budget officer, Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols.

It took them four hours Thursday to determine there were not enough “fer-votes” to push through an administration-proposed contract that would have Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana serving as the third party administrator (TPA) of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) Preferred Provider Organization (PPO).

The upshot was a four-hour hearing that instead of ending with celebratory fireworks for the administration, ended first with considerable confusion over Mason’s Rules of Order, and then a whimper as Nichols pulled the bill from the flames just before it was reduced to a pile of metaphorical ashes.

At the end of the day, State Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) had Nichols, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro) and Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego) circling the wagons in a desperate attempt to avoid further embarrassment.

But Jackson had lots of help. Several members of the two committees, primarily from the House Appropriations Committee, peppered Nichols with a barrage of questions with several legislators indicated that they had heard from hundreds of constituents and no one supported turning over the administration of the PPO to BCBS.

One of those, Rep. Rogers Pope (R-Denham Springs), a former Livingston Parish School Superintendent was critical of what he termed a lack of communication between the administration and education officials about the proposed changes.

But it was Mary Patricia Wray, legislative director for the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, who delivered the most withering criticism of the proposed contract, coupling it with a blistering attack of the Jindal administration’s onslaught against public schools.

“Some say the school districts will save money,” she said. “Some have mentioned savings of $35 million but one important fact has been overlooked. Many who tout these savings to school districts are the very parties who have crafted policies that have starved our public schools of the funding they so desperately need.”

Noting that while public school systems have received no increase in their per-pupil funding (Minimum Foundation Program funding) for more than four years, she said, “millions of dollars of funds constitutionally dedicated to our K through 12 public schools are going to leave this year to go to non-public schools of inferior quality.

“Moreover, this legislature approved a policy that provides un-capped tax rebates for donations to non-public schools while simultaneously our governor vetoed a bill that would have provided reasonably-capped rebates for donation to our inadequately-funded public schools.

“These priorities created the same emergency that their supporters now frantically want you to believe will be partially undone with your vote today—if you vote yes.

“So while the policies of the same administration that now asks you to support this contract have been consistently, habitually, and unapologetically to place funding public education at the very bottom of the priority, it seems a bit odd that they would take this moment to become proponents for the adequate funding of K through 12 education in our state.”

Wray called the proposed contract “fixing something that is not broken” and that it was “high on the administration’s list—and not because they suddenly care about adequately funding public schools they denigrate or supporting the institutions in which the teachers they humiliate are educating the next generation of Louisiana citizens.”

She said the policies of the Jindal administration “have starved government at every level. The lack of planning on their part should not and must not constitute an emergency for the people you serve. This contract may seem inconsequential but to the people served by OGB and to the people who elected you, it about doing the right thing, setting the right standards. Our public servants are more valuable than the rhetoric of the moment. They are more important than the flip-flop policy making that constantly puts them and their benefits in the crosshairs of our state’s budget crisis.”

But the real fun occurred over the last few minutes of the four-hour session.

It all started when Alario, after apparently realizing the numbers were there for concurrence by both the House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees, said, “We all know that change is difficult,” a rather odd observation given the Jindal administration has never considered the difficulties involved in change when he had the votes on such matters as education.

“I think we probably need to give a little more thought and a little more time on this issue,” he continued. “I’m going to suggest that we defer action on this matter today.”

Fannin immediately made an identical motion on behalf of the Appropriations Committee.

Before they could vote on Alario’s motion, however, Jackson offered a substitute motion to vote on the contract immediately. That motion passed the Appropriations Committee by a vote of 16-9. Voting for her substitute motion were Reps. Cameron Henry (R-Metairie), James Armes (D-Leesville), Jared Brossett (D-New Orleans), Henry Burns (R-Haughton), Roy Burrell (D-Shreveport), Brett Geymann (R-Lake Charles), Joe Harrison (R-Gray), Jackson, Edward James (D-Baton Rouge), Walt Leger (D-New Orleans), Helena Moreno (D-New Orleans), James Morris (R-Oil City), Pope, John Schroder (R-Covington), Patricia Smith (D-Baton Rouge) and Ledricka Thierry (D-Opelousas).

Voting no on Jackson’s substitute motion were Reps. Fannin, John Berthelot (R-Gonzales), Robert Billiot (D-Westwego), Chris Broadwater (R-Hammond), Simone Champagne (R-Erath), Charles Chaney (R-Rayville), Lance Harris (R-Alexandria), Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville) and Anthony Ligi (R-Metairie).

In the voting along party lines, seven Republicans were evenly split on Jackson’s motion with seven for and seven against. Two Democrats voted no and nine voted yes.

Reps. Patrick Connick (R-Marrero), Franklin Foil (R-Baton Rouge) and Jack Montoucet (D-Crowley) were absent.

After that vote, presiding chairman Sen. Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville) attempted to call a Senate Finance Committee vote on Jackson’s substitute motion before being informed that someone from Finance had to make a similar motion. When no one did, Jackson’s motion died.

When he finally realized that the next vote needed to be on Alario’s motion to defer action, he announced the motion and asked if there were any objections and Sen. Dan Claitor (R-Baton Rouge) voiced his objection, forcing a roll call vote.

Claitor was able to inject some gallows humor into situation. When he voiced his dissent, he referred to himself as a “former Senate Finance Committee member” in reference to two other legislators—Reps. Harold Richie and Morris—who were demoted from their vice chairmanships of the House Committee on Insurance and House Natural Resources and Environment Committee, respectively.

They opposed Jindal and were summarily demoted. Richie opposed tax rebates for those who donate money to private and parochial schools while Morris fought Jindal over the governor’s decision to use one-time money to fund recurring expenses in the state’s General Budget.

The Senate members then voted 11-3 in favor of Alario’s motion to defer action. Those in favor of deferral included Donahue, Norby Chabert (R-Houma), Bret Allain (R-Franklin), Ronnie Johns (R-Lake Charles), Gerald Long (R-Natchitoches), Fred Mills (R-New Iberia), Dan “Blade” Morrish (R-Jennings), Greg Tarver (D-Shreveport), Francis Thompson (D-Delhi), Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe) and Bodi White (R-Baton Rouge).

Voting against Alario’s motion to defer were Sens. Sherri Smith Buffington (R-Keithville), Claitor, and Ed Murray (D-New Orleans).

Sen. Eric LaFleur (D-Ville Platte) was absent.

Before a vote could then be taken on Fannin’s motion to defer consideration of the contract for one week, Jackson threw another curve at the proceedings by making a second substitute motion—this one to reject the contract outright.

That brought things to a screeching halt as it appeared no one knew what to do: a vote would be suicidal to proponents of the contract since the House committee seemed almost certain to go along with Jackson.

Morrish, after several minutes of total confusion, was finally recognized and asked, “What happens if the House votes to reject? If the substitute motion passes, where will the contract stand?”

“The contract is rejected,” responded Donahue.

“Even without a Senate vote?”

“With no Senate vote,” Donahue repeated. “If either body votes to reject, the contract is rejected.”

As more confusion reigned and amid the chatter that was reminiscent of a crowded room scene from a movie (only without the rattle of ice and the clinking of drink glasses), the barely audible word “adjournment” was suggested by someone on one of the committees at least twice.

Finally, after a full five minutes of idle chatter, Donahue explained that because it was a joint meeting of two individual committees and not a meeting of the Joint Committee on the Budget, “the rules are different.”

The only thing that needed to be done, however, was to call a vote on Jackson’s motion to reject the contract which, of course, would be a disaster for the administration.

Donahue, obviously in a quandary, began stalling. At that point, the two committees had been in session for four hours and five minutes.

At precisely 4:09:40, Nichols quietly slid back into a seat at the witness table in front of the committees looking defeated. Again, the word “adjourn” rose above the din from someone on one of the committees.

But right on cue, at 4:10:32, Donahue called on Kristy. “Commissioner, do you have anything you want to bring to the agenda at this time?”

It was almost as if his line was scripted.

“Mr. Chairman, I’d like to ask that the committee allow me to remove the contract from the agenda at this time,” she replied.

“I don’t think you need permission. You don’t need permission. You can just pull it from…”

“We’d like to come back at a later date,” she interrupted abruptly. “We’d like to pull it.”

It took another ten seconds for some to make the formal and more audible motion to adjourn.

In the words of the delightful Yogi Berra: It ain’t over ’til it’s over.

And in the immortal words of Walt Kelly in his wonderful Pogo comic strip: To be drug out.

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