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Archive for the ‘Notable Quotables’ Category

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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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization on October 17, 2012| 1 Comment »

“We just got the contract yesterday and we need to give people an opportunity to look at it,” said Fannin, who added that the contract was nearly 80 pages.”

—House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Fannin, explaining the reason for cancelling Thursday’s joint meeting of the Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to consider approving the contract for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana (BCBS) to take over operations of the Office of Group Benefits. The governor’s office, however, said the reason for the cancellation was that key committee members were scheduled to be out of town.

That would be an oops moment…

…and another good argument for better communications between legislators and Piyush.

“Although we can be somewhat sure that the administration will continue in its attempt to gain committee votes for approval of this effort, it is our hope that the legislature will continue to stand strong and operate as a separate, co-equal branch of government.”

—State Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe), in a more plausible prepared statement following cancellation of Thursday’s joint meeting of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees to consider approval of the BCBS contract to take over as third party administrator (TPA) of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB). In reality, the meeting was most likely cancelled after Gov. Piyush Jindal’s office realized it did not have the votes for approval of the contract. Jackson is a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

“Legislators’ votes just went up in price.”

—C.B. Forgotson.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization on October 17, 2012| 2 Comments »

“I believe I’d have a coronary if they went against the governor on this.”

—A longtime political observor, commenting on the upcoming joint meeting of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees to consider Gov. Piyush Jindal’s proposed privatization of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB).

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, LSU, Notable Quotables on October 16, 2012| 3 Comments »

“The layoff is necessary after other budgetary measures were taken, as a layoff avoidance measure, that did not meet the total dollars needed to match the reduction.”

—Dr. Robert Barish, chancellor of University Medical Center in Shrevrport, justifying the layoffs of 41 employees of E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe in an Oct. 15 letter to State Civil Service Director Shannon Templet.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Higher Education, LSU, Notable Quotables, Privatization, Public Records on October 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

“The deliberative process is being invoked by the clients with respect to the various drafts and any communication involving those drafts.”

—LSU attorney Lloyd Lunsford, parroting the Jindal party line in defending the denial of access to public records by invoking deliberative process.

“LSU administrators asserted the deliberative process privilege based upon my recommendation after independent research.”

—LSU attorney Shelby McKenzie, on denying media access to public records based on deliberative process.

“As executive counsel, I have discussions about the law with LSU’s legal counsel and other agencies. At the end of the day, it’s the agency’s decision to determine how they respond.”

—Elizabeth Murrill, Gov. Piyush Jindal’s executive counsel, attempting to claim that the administration does not have a hand in day to day operations of LSU. (Murrill, however, demanded to review LSU documents requested by LouisianaVoice before their release.)

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