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Vice chair of House Labor Committee represents insurance clients before Office of Workers’ Comp that he once headed

July 10, 2013 by tomaswell

When Chris Broadwater the state legislator says he has never received compensation from a private source for the performance of his legislative duties, he is technically correct.

Broadwater the attorney, however, does represent insurance companies before a state agency he once ran and over which he still exercises control as Vice Chairman of the House Labor and Industrial Relations Committee.

Taking that gray area of state ethics and moving into even murkier waters is the fact that Broadwater regularly consults with Wes Hataway, the current director of the Louisiana Office of Worker’s Compensation, the appointive position he himself once held before his election to the House of Representatives in 2011, on matters pending before the current director, Wes Hataway.

Broadwater (R-Hammond) resigned as Director of the Office of Workers’ Comp (OWC) in February 2011 to join a private law firm preparatory to running for state representative that same year and was succeeded by Hataway.

An ally of Gov. Bobby Jindal, Broadwater was immediately assigned to the House Labor and Industrial Relations Committee where he was promptly named vice chairman.

Documents filed with the State Board of Ethics in December 2012 and April of this year indicate that Broadwater represents three companies, Qmedtrix at $275 an hour, the Louisiana Home Builders Association, and LUBA Worker’s Comp, both at $135 an hour, in defending worker’s compensation claims before the OWC.

Moreover, an application for supervisory writs filed with the Third Circuit Court of Appeal in Lake Charles in March of this year in the case of Christus Health Southwest Louisiana, dba Christus St. Patrick Hospital, v. Great American Insurance Co. of New York, revealed meetings between Broadwater, Qmedtrix and Hataway to discuss the disposition of numerous cases involving Qmedtrix, namely efforts to get the cases stayed and transferred to another judge.

That writ application concerns procedures and conversations that took place involving numerous pending workers’ compensation cases about which we will be writing in subsequent postings.

For the purposes of this post, however, we will be limiting the discussion to the activities of Broadwater as they pertain to his relationship with the current Director of OWC (the position he once held) and his serving as vice chairman of the legislative committee that oversees the functions of OWC.

Broadwater, when confronted with the reports of the meetings, admitted to meeting with Hataway in late November 2012 at which time the transfers were discussed, the court filing says.

“In what may be the pinnacle of irony, Mr. Broadwater actually disclosed this ex parte meeting on his state ethics disclosure form,” the writ application says.

It (the writ application) quoted Broadwater’s own comment from that disclosure form: “Met with Director of OWC discussing process of resolving disputes over medical billing.”

The document said Broadwater admitted to meeting with Hataway “three or four times in person” (always with a Qmedtrix attorney present) and speaking with him 10 or 15 times on the phone. “This ex parte contact (Latin legal term meaning for the benefit of one party) with the OWC director at the request of Qmedtrix” cost Qmedtrix $275 per hour for Mr. Broadwater’s services, it said. “This rate must have seemed reasonable to Qmedtrix especially once they learned Chris Broadwater was not only a longtime friend (20 years) of Director Hataway, but was actually Director Hataway’s boss when Chris Broadwater was OWC Director,” the writ application added.

Not only did Broadwater admit discussing with Hataway the pending appointment of his former law partner to succeed Judge Shelly Dick once Judge Dick was confirmed as U.S. District Court Judge, but he related in detail how Hataway sought his advice on whether or not Hataway had the power as director to issue a stay of pending cases without involving the judges to whom the cases were assigned. Broadwater was of the opinion that Hataway did have such authority.

At the time Broadwater was hired by Qmedtrix, he “was well aware that Qmedtrix was involved in numerous workers’ compensation claims pending in the various OWC districts challenging its payment recommendations to the hospitals and ambulatory surgery center,” the writ application says.

“There is absolutely no question that Chris Broadwater was well aware that his client Qmedtrix was heavily involved in the ‘usual and customary’ litigation in front of the OWC at the time these ex parte discussions took place,” the court document said.

Broadwater even admitted as much when he was asked in deposition if he understood when he spoke with Hataway that Qmedtrix “was heavily involved in litigation in Louisiana workers’ compensation courts at the time.”

“Sure,” responded Broadwater to that question.

In addition to Qmedtrix, Broadwater also represented LUBA, the writ application says, “and, in fact, helped (former law partner) Amanda Clark secure LUBA as her client as well.

Broadwater, in a two-page letter to LouisianaVoice, said he approaches his duties as an attorney and as a legislator “with humbleness and with the highest sense of honor and ethical behavior. I believe that all elected officials should…act with the interests of our citizens in mind,” he said.

He said his representation of clients is governed by state statute which “prohibits me from receiving compensation from a source other than the legislature for performing my public duties, from receiving finder’s fees, from being paid by a private source for services related to the legislature or which draws substantially upon official data not a part of the public domain.”

He said he has provided legal counsel to clients before agencies, other than the legislature “and have disclosed such representation as required by law. At no time have I been offered, nor have I ever accepted payment from a private source for the performance of my legislative duties,” he said.

“My service as vice chair of the Labor & Industrial Relations Committee in no manner alters my duties or the constraints placed upon me under the Code of Governmental Ethics.

“If one assumed your interpretation to be correct—that service on a committee to which matters of the law related to one’s private employment are considered—it would likewise be improper for attorneys to serve on the Civil Law Committee, attorneys to serve on the Judiciary Committee, attorneys to serve on the Criminal Justice Committee, pharmacists to serve on the Health and Welfare Committee, business owners to serve on the Commerce Committee, farmers to serve on the Agriculture Committee, insurance agents to serve on the Insurance Committee, accountants to serve on the Ways and Means Committee, or attorneys to serve in the legislature in general as the legislature passes laws that inevitably will be later interpreted and applied in our private legal practice. I do not believe that such an outcome is required by the law, nor do I believe it would be wise policy to prohibit individuals to participate in government and share their area of expertise as policy is developed.

“I believe that my colleagues and I take our oath seriously and, should an issue arise that directly relates to an issue with which we are personally involved, we appropriately recuse ourselves from any such vote.”

While that was certainly better than a “no comment,” it still does not address the issue of his meeting with the OWC director to discuss pending cases that might affect his clients or to give advice to his successor on these cases.

Nor does it explain the likelihood that he would be hired to represent the three companies to fight for denials or reductions in workers’ comp medical payments were it not for his connections as both a legislator and as a former director of the Louisiana Office of Workers’ Compensation.

Just another sad example of how things are done in the administration that gave us the “gold standard” of governmental ethics.

Posted in Ethics, House, Senate, Judges, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, State Agencies, Transparency | 12 Comments »

$70,000 job monitoring state boards & commissions went to a director of Bobby Jindal’s re-election campaign committee; an example of the fox serving as gatekeeper to the henhouse?

July 7, 2013 by tomaswell

For eight months, from Oct. 16, 2012, until June 28, Gov. Bobby Jindal had a director of his re-election committee on the state payroll overseeing state boards and commissions, according to state records.

The duties of Kendal Melvin, director of the Department of Boards and Commissions, was reassigned to Kyle Plotkin, communications director for the governor’s office, according to an announcement by Jindal on Friday, June 28. Plotkin was promoted by Jindal to Assistant Chief of Staff at that time and was given the supervision of state boards and commissions.

Plotkin was given a pay increase, from $90,000 to $110,000 to assume the additional duties, according to Jindal press secretary Sean Lansing.

Melvin, a Vermont native, was initially hired as Director of the Department of Boards and Commissions on Oct. 16, 2012, at a salary of $70,000 per year.

But records provided by the Secretary of State show that she was simultaneously serving as a director of the Committee to Re-elect Bobby Jindal.

Before becoming a state employee, she was on Jindal’s campaign payroll at annual salary of $44,578, according to Jindal’s campaign expenditure report. Her last paycheck from the campaign was for $1,711.86 on Oct. 15, 2012, the day before she went onto the state payroll, records show.

Each of her 46 checks from Jindal’s campaign between Jan. 14, 2011 and Oct. 15, 2012 was issued to her home address in Barre, Vermont, records show, a possible indication that she never moved her legal address to Louisiana even though she was working here.

Her hiring would again raise the question of why, if Jindal really wants to keep Louisiana’s best and brightest in the state as he says, does he continue to go out of state to hire many of his top appointees? Plotkin, for example, is from New Jersey and Jindal policy director Stafford Palmieri is from New York.

Jindal was re-elected in October of 2011 but his committee has continued to function, even filing an annual report on Jan. 10 of this year that showed Melvin was still a committee director.

All campaign expenditures however, are listed in the State Ethics Commission’s campaign finance records in Jindal’s name but no expenditures are listed for either the Committee to Re-elect Bobby Jindal or Friends of Bobby Jindal, the committee’s original name when it was first incorporated in January of 2004.

Jindal entered the 2011 election with nearly $9 million in his campaign treasury and facing only token opposition, so it naturally generates questions as to why his campaign committee remains active, even to the point of filing an annual report in January, instead of disbanding.

Since his re-election, Jindal has continued to collect more than $1.6 million in campaign contributions, leading to renewed speculation about his intentions to seek national office. He is presently 18 months into his second term and is constitutionally prohibited from seeking re-election.

What other reason could explain the need to continue fund raising, especially the $35,000 he raised in New York on a single day—Oct. 25, 2012? His 2012 inauguration, for example, only cost his campaign $156,000.

But an even bigger question is why an active director of Jindal’s campaign committee would be allowed to simultaneously draw a state paycheck for eight months.

State Civil Service rules generally prohibit state classified employees from engaging in political activity. Unclassified employees, however, may participate in political activities so long as such activity is carried out on the employee’s own time. (emphasis ours.)

Melvin was an unclassified, or appointed, employee.

A second question would be how Plotkin could assume assistant chief of staff duties and the directorship of Melvin’s department at an additional salary of only $20,000 compared to the $70,000 paid Melvin for a single function.

Put another way, how is it that Melvin required $70,000 to perform her job and Plotkin was able to absorb that and the assistant chief of staff’s duties for $50,000 less than her former salary for her one job?

Those questions were submitted via email to Plotkin but an automated response said he was out of the office until Monday, July 8. The automated response directed all questions to Sean Lansing of the governor’s office.

Accordingly, the questions were then directed to Lansing, who never responded.

What exactly is the Department of Boards and Commissions anyway, other than an obscure agency tucked away within the Executive Branch?

Basically, it is charged with the responsibility of processing and retaining records of all appointments made by the governor. The St. Peter of Louisiana boards and commissions, if you will.

So the department director is essentially the gatekeeper for all the boards and commissions (and there are many of them) to which the governor may appoint favored campaign contributors—which may go a long way in answering the second question because the job’s duties otherwise appear to be quite mundane.

Who better then to head up the department than a director of his re-election campaign? Such an individual theoretically would know who to reach out and touch for contributions and to not-so-subtly remind them to whom they owe their appointments to prestigious state boards and commissions.

During her tenure at the department, which began a full year after Jindal’s re-election, Jindal received more than $585,000 in campaign contributions, at least $42,000 of that from nine of his appointees to state boards and commissions. Those include:

• Tony Clayton, Southern University Board of Supervisors: $5,000;

• Charlotte Bollinger, State Board of Regents: $5,000;

• Carl Shetler, University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors: $5,000;

• William J. Dore, Sr., Southern States Energy Board: $5,000;

• Dave Roberts, Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (Super Dome) Board: $5,000;

• Hank Danos, LSU Board of Supervisors: $5,000;

• Lee Mallett, LSU Board of Supervisors: $5,000;

• Blake Chatelain, LSU Board of Supervisors: two contributions totaling $2,000;

• Moore Investments (James Moore), LSU Board of Supervisors: $5,000.

Between Jindal’s re-election in October of 2011 and Melvin’s appointment to her state position in October of 2012, Jindal raked in a little more than $1 million, including $76,500 from eight appointees to boards and commissions. The bulk of that $76,500 came from $50,000 in 10 separate contributions from Board of Commerce and Industry member Bryan Bossier of Alexandria, family members and assorted businesses run by him.

The web page for the department features a question and answer section about the procedure for applying for appointment to a board or commission. Call us cynical, but we have taken the liberty of adding our own tongue-in-cheek answers (in parentheses and italics) to those provided by the department:

• (Q): How do I apply for a position on a board of commission?

• (A): Submit an official application, along with a letter stating why you are qualified or experienced in the area of the board’s activity. (read: Submit an official application, along with a letter stating your net worth and how much, in terms of contributions, you are willing to give);

• (Q): What happens after I submit an application to the Governor’s office?

• (A): When it is time for the Governor to make an appointment, an analysis is presented that includes the statutory restrictions and information on professional or personal experience either necessary or preferable to the board’s function. The analysis is reviewed and applicants screened. The Governor then makes his selections. (read: When it is time for the Governor to make an appointment, all political contributions are taken into consideration along with those of other applicants. The comparisons are reviewed and the Governor makes his selection based on the amount contributed by each applicant);

• (Q): How do I know if I am eligible to be appointed?

• (A): Most of the seats on the boards and commissions are restricted by statutes. You can research boards and commissions and the laws that govern them on the Internet. You may apply for any boards or commissions that interest you. Please specify your first and second choices. (read: Most of the seats on the boards and commissions are doled out on the basis of the applicant’s financial stability and willingness to contribute to the Governor’s campaign and on the applicant’s willingness to vote in the manner dictated by the Governor, with no questions asked or by asking only those questions approved in advanced and passed on to the member by the Governor’s staff).

Posted in Boards, Commissions, Governor's Office, Jobs, Public Records, Transparency | 12 Comments »

It’s a 30 for Ruston’s Morning Paper; sadly, tough-minded, independent publishers like John Hays the exception today

July 6, 2013 by tomaswell

Appropriately enough, the headline on Friday’s final issue of Ruston’s Morning Paper was simply “-30-.” It is the universally recognized (for those of us who’ve been around newsrooms for a few years) indication of the end of a news story.

The indication was tacked on at the end of a story in part because in the old days, reporters pounded out their stories on manual typewriters and the copy generally ran more than a single page. Thus, at the bottom of the first page, the reporter would type “more,” and at the top of ensuing pages he or she would type “add one” to indicate the second page, “add two” for the third page, etc. To let the copy editor know when he’d reached the end, the reporter would type the number 30.

Certainly, the newspaper industry is in decline, thanks in large part to the proliferation of online news services. Not only have circulation numbers plummeted, but so have ad revenue and the actual size of newspapers—both in terms of page size and page numbers.

For those of us who grew up in newsrooms, who learned at the feet of demanding editors like Tom Kelly (Ruston Daily Leader), Jimmy Hatten (Monroe Morning World, now the News Star), and Jim Hughes (the now defunct Baton Rouge State-Times, an afternoon paper that gave way to its sister publication, The Advocate several years ago), editors for whom I was privileged to work, it has been a painful process to witness. Nothing is more traumatic, career-wise, than watching a once-vibrant, influential voice of the people silenced forever.

The State-Times was actually the senior paper in Baton Rouge but like afternoon newspapers everywhere, it began to feel the pinch even before the dominance of online news radically altered subscribers’ reading habits. Despite its longtime status as the official legal journal for the State of Louisiana, it closed shop in 1991.

Hughes earlier had been elevated from managing editor of the State-Times to executive editor of both papers, so he stayed on until his retirement. When necessary, he could bore holes in you with those eyes. I still suspect he was the real inspiration for the Loggins and Messina hit Angry Eyes. No one could reduce a reporter to a quivering mass more quickly than Hughes. No one came away unscathed from a private woodshed session with him.

Once, when I was investigating a church-affiliated school for girls in Bienville Parish, the school’s superintendent/principal/minister/father figure and his attorney appeared at the State-Times office to meet with Hughes and me. Near the end of that meeting, the superintendent/principal/minister launched into fervent—and loud—prayer. Hughes glanced over at me and mouthed, “I’ll get you for this.”

He was not one to be found in church on Sunday. In fact, at his funeral, the minister opened the service by telling those in attendance, “Jim Hughes once told me he never met a preacher who was worth a damn. So I stand before you today under a lot of pressure to be worth a damn.” It was, to say the least, an interesting service.

Hatten was a tough old boot, as well, but he was also a man who appreciated a good practical joke—even when he was the victim. He had an ancient manual typewriter at his desk, a Royal with blank keys that he had must’ve salvaged as surplus property from a high school typing class. Hatten was not a touch-typist; he never bothered to learn the location of the keys. He was a two-fingered, hunt-and-peck typist who found it necessary to place stick-on letters on each of the keys in order to see what he was typing.

As wire editor, I worked the desk next to him. One evening, while he was at dinner, I peeled all the labels off his typewriter keys and switched them around. When he returned from dinner, he took dictation over the phone on a rather long story from one of the paper’s correspondents (they were called stringers in those days).

He had a box of yellow folded teletype paper beneath his desk which fed paper in a continuous roll into his typewriter. He never took his eyes from the keyboard to check his copy until he had finished taking the story and ripped it from his typewriter. A string of invectives soon flowed in my direction when he saw the gibberish he had typed. He knew the perpetrator without asking. It ended in his throwing the copy at me and telling me to call the stringer back and take the damned story myself. He was laughing the entire time, however, which betrayed his attempt at anger.

I worked at the Daily Leader four separate times, starting out as sports editor, then as general assignment reporter, city editor and ending as managing editor. While sports editor, I decided to return to Louisiana Tech and major in physical education with aspirations of becoming a baseball coach. In fact, I was a constant source of consternation to Tom Kelly because I was as devoted to my sandlot baseball team at that time as I was to my job. In spite of that lack of dedication, I learned a lot from Kelly about community journalism.

Wiley Hilburn, who had recently come to Tech as head of the journalism department, read my stories and convinced me my future was as a reporter, not a coach. Reluctantly, I took his advice and changed my major to journalism where I spent the next quarter-century. I once told Hilburn, facetiously, of course, that I hoped someday to find it in my heart to forgive him.

I recently returned to writing following my retirement from the State of Louisiana.

Somewhere in all of that, beginning 37 years ago in April of 1976, a Ruston native who spent most of his adult life to that point in San Antonio before moving to Ruston, got himself an IBM Selectric typewriter and he and his wife set up shop in their living room to launch the weekly Morning Paper to compete with the Daily Leader, which John Hays was convinced had become too much a part of the local power structure.

The establishment laughed at him when the first issue of his crude publication rolled off the presses but John and Susan Hays persevered.

Before it was all over, Hays had broken stories on three separate investment scams. The first was a $5.5 million swindle sweeping through north Louisiana that became known as the Pine Tree Caper. Another was the $55 million ALIC rip-off and the third was a story on Towers Financial, then the largest ($550 million) Ponzi scheme in history. The upshot of his investigative journalism was people went to jail; Forbes magazine did a story on the Morning Paper’s investigative work on the Pine Tree Caper; The Atlanta Journal & Constitution likewise gave Hays a lot of ink on the ALIC exposé and the New York Times gave him a two-page spread on the Towers Financial story. He also received a Loeb Award for the Towers stories. Along the way, he even got a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize.

Fast forward 37 years. Hughes and Hatten are both dead. They, like Hays, were the last of a breed. Kelly publishes a monthly newspaper called the Piney Woods Journal in Winn Parish, a publication geared to the forestry industry. Hilburn, beset by a bout with cancer, retired from Tech after 40 years, succeeded by Reginald Owens, one of his star students of the late 60s (and, I’m proud to say, a contemporary of mine). Thankfully, Hilburn is cancer-free today and I still have coffee with him and Hays at the Huddle House when I make one of my infrequent visits.

Hays, sadly, is another story. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and by all appearances, beat the disease. A couple of weeks ago I was passing through Ruston and dutifully met Hilburn and John Sachs at the Huddle House. Hays was absent because he had another meeting—with a doctor.

The cancer, we later learned, had returned and at age 71, Hays believes it would be patently unfair to burden Susan with the dual responsibility of taking care of him and continuing to publish the Morning Paper.

Thus, Friday’s edition was the final issue of the Morning Paper. A flood of thoughts and emotions rushed through the misty memories of my mind as I read his last issue in my email Saturday. The finality of it all is mind numbing. That happens with someone who was alternately a competitor, an adversary, a colleague and a friend through nearly four decades.

Another era has passed. A part of me passes with it. Sometimes nostalgia is painful. Very painful.

This is one of those times.

-30-

Posted in Politics | 19 Comments »

So much for representing all one’s constituents; Legislature approves equal pay only for those women in the public sector

July 5, 2013 by tomaswell

When the chips are down, you can generally count on your legislators, in the apparent belief that they represent a composite embodiment of a modern day Solomon, to make the absurd proposal to split the baby when it comes to doing the right thing.

While politics is still the art of compromise, they take it to the extreme and then never seem to understand why their action, instead of pleasing constituents, should only serve to generate pervasive anger as the appropriate response.

Case in point: Senate Bill 153 by Sen. Ed Murray of New Orleans. His bill would have helped close the gender pay gap for both public and private workers.

That certainly seems fair. If a computer is repaired, does it matter who fixed it? If a story appears in the paper, does it make any difference if it’s written by a man or woman? If a female bricklayer lays the same number of bricks in an hour as the man beside her, shouldn’t she receive the same pay considerations? The same should apply to truck drivers, sales personnel, engineers, architects, and attorneys. A woman who performs the same job as a man certainly should receive the same pay, after all. Who could argue with that?

Apparently Sen. Patrick “Page” Cortez (R-Lafayette). For some unknown reason, Cortez decided to split the baby by offering an amendment to make Murray’s bill apply only to the public sector and not the private.

Why? What possible reason could there be for the legislature to sanction discrimination against private sector female employees?

Why is such blatant discrimination against women in the private sector allowed by our legislature? All hell should’ve broken loose on behalf of private sector female employees as it almost certainly would have—and justifiably so—if Cortez’s amendment had, for example, made the equal pay bill applicable only to whites to the exclusion of African Americans.

Gov. Bobby Jindal loves to travel across the country with his message of how wonderful things are in Louisiana since he became governor. But you never hear a peep out of him about how Louisiana is tied for the second widest disparity in pay between men and women, according to figures released by the National Women’s Law Center.

Wyoming is the worst in the nation. There, women make 67 cents for each dollar earned by their male counterparts. Louisiana is not far behind. We are tied with Utah for the second widest disparity, with female employees making 69 cents for every dollar a man makes. If you are Sen. Gomez, you’d say she makes only 31 percent less than the male but if you’re a woman, he makes 44.9 percent more.

Even Mississippi and Alabama, where women are paid 74 cents per dollar made by men, rank ahead of Louisiana. South Carolina? Seventy-six cents. Arkansas and Texas? Eighty-two cents—18.8 percent higher than Louisiana.

Ouch.

While the disparity is worse in Wyoming, Louisiana and Utah, the difference is evident throughout the country. In California, for example, Women are paid roughly 85 percent of a man’s salary for the same job. The difference is the same for Nevada and Arizona.

The District of Columbia has the narrowest gap, with women making 90.4 cents per each dollar made by men in the same job.

Murray’s bill failed to get the necessary 20 votes the first time around on May 15 but it passed on May 22 after five senators—Dan Claitor (R-Baton Rouge), Cortez, A.G. Crowe (R-Slidell), Elbert Guillory (D-turned R, Opelousas), and Neil Riser (R-Columbia)—changed their votes from the previous week after Cortez’s amendment passed, 24-11.

Four of the five voted no on May 15. Guillory, the lone exception, was absent on the first vote.

Understandably, some senators like Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb (D-Baton Rouge), Troy Brown (D-Napoleonville), Norbért Chabert (R-Houma), Eric Lafleur (D-Ville Platte), and Sherri Smith Buffington (R-Keithville) voted in favor of Cortez’s amendment because it was the only way to get even the gutted version of the bill passed. Each of those voted in favor of the original bill, the subsequent amendment and for final passage.

Senators who displayed their disdain for women in general and private sector women in particular by voting against final passage included:

• Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego);

• Robert Adley (R-Benton);

• R.L. “Bret” Allain (R-Franklin);

• Conrad Appel (R-Metairie);

• Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville);

• Dale Erdy (R-Livingston);

• Ronny John (R-Lake Charles);

• Gerald Long (R-Natchitoches);

• Dan Morrish (R-Jennings);

• Barrow Peacock (R-Bossier City);

• Jonathan Perry (R-Kaplan);

• Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe);

• Mack “Bodi” White (R-Central).

Those who took a hike and did not vote were:

• Daniel Martiny (R-Metairie);

• Gary Smith (D-Norco);

• John Smith (R-Leesville).

House members voting against the bill included:

• Richard Burford (R-Stonewall);

• Gordon Dove (R-Houma);

• Lance Harris (R-Alexandria);

• Joe Harrison (R-Gray);

• Paul Hollis (R-Covington);

• John “Jay” Morris (R-Monroe);

• James “Jim” Morris (R-Oil City);

• Stephen Pugh (R-Ponchatoula);

• Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport);

• Scott Simon (R-Abita Springs);

• Kirk Talbot (R-River Ridge);

• Jeff Thompson (R-Bossier City).

Staying home and not voting were:

• Wesley Bishop (D-New Orleans);

• Greg Cromer (R-Slidell);

• Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro);

• Kenny Havard (R-Jackson);

• Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville);

• Valerie Hodges (R-Denham Springs);

• Walt Leger (D-New Orleans).

So much for the campaign rhetoric that these good and noble public servants want nothing more than to represent all the people of their districts.

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians | 16 Comments »

Jindal’s veto of developmentally disabled funds is part of multi-state trend to slash benefits for Medicaid recipients

July 1, 2013 by tomaswell

If you think Gov. Bobby Jindal’s veto of $4 million to provide in-home services to the developmentally disabled was merely an aberration, an inadvertent blip on the budgetary radar, you may wish to reassess your decision to give the governor a pass on this issue.

Jindal, of course, offered his own spin in his pushback against criticism he has received from proponents of the measure but he simply can’t get around the fact that cutbacks of services to the poor appear to be the norm in several states these days. Surely he has not forgotten his closure of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville less than a year ago that put mental health treatment by state facilities out of reach for many in southeast Louisiana.

No one denies the current budgetary shortfalls—brought about in large part by Jindal’s stubborn refusal to seek new means of tax revenue except through the New Orleans hotel fee increase (which is not a “tax,” in the land of Jindal-speak, but an “enforceable obligation,”) and college tuition increases (“fees,” not taxes). But were it not for the more-than-generous tax incentives doled out in the form of corporate welfare, er, industrial incentives the state’s coffers would be $5 billion richer each year.

It’s not like he couldn’t have trimmed a couple of million or so from the $1.285 billion appropriation for his Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Of course, to suggest there might be the remote possibility of waste in a budget of nearly $1.3 billion for a pet agency would be blasphemy.

The Louisiana State Racing Commission got its full share of funding—$12.2 million. Surely, there’s no waste there. Likewise, the $82.7 million appropriation for the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District administered by a commission made up 100 percent of generous Jindal campaign donors.

Then there’s the Department of Economic Development and the Office of Business Development which combine to receive the full complement of their $36.6 million appropriation in order to ensure the uninterrupted flow of those $5 billion in tax incentives, rebates and exemptions to attract all those new jobs that are supposed to retain current residents and bring in new ones—even though the state’s population has shrunk to the extent that we now have only six congressmen instead of the eight we had a few years ago.

And we’re not even going to go into detail about all those washed up ex-legislators hired by the various agencies at six-figure salaries—or the glut of administrative personnel with limited experience with which John White has loaded down his Department of Education, also at six-figure salaries. Or White’s slipshod management of the disastrous voucher program that allowed New Living Word School in Ruston to rip off DOE to the tune of nearly $400,000—money that will never be recovered, by the way.

Sorry, folks, the money’s not there for the developmentally disabled. You just should have had the good sense to be born developmentally abled or better yet, rich.

And as we said in the first paragraph, that veto was no accident. It was planned from the get-go as will future cuts of medical benefits to the poor.

Why do you think Carol Steckel was brought here in the first place?

Steckel was Alabama’s Medicaid Commissioner from 1988-1992 and again from December 2003 until her move to Louisiana in November of 2010.

While at Alabama she issued a ruling that poor amputees in that state didn’t really need artificial limbs. In January of 2008, she submitted the state’s Medicaid budget that cut programs that pay for prosthetics and orthotics (used to provide support and alignment to prevent or correct deformities) because, in her words, the programs were optional, not mandatory.

She also awarded a $3.7 million contract to Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) in 2007 even though that company’s bid was $500,000 more than the next bid. ACS had hired Alabama Gov. Bob Riley’s former chief of staff Toby Roth, which probably greased the skids somewhat.

Sound familiar? ACS, which is now part of Xerox, was awarded four state contracts totaling $45.55 million and ACS contributed $10,000 to Jindal political campaigns. Jan Cassidy, sister-in-law to Congressman (U.S. Senator wannabe) Bill Cassidy, previously worked for ACS and then for Xerox as Vice President, State of Louisiana Client Executive. Where is Ms. Cassidy today? She heads the State of Louisiana Division of Administration’s Procurement and Technology Section at a salary of $150,000. Toby Roth in reverse?

Steckel was imported from Alabama and given the title of Chief of the Department of Health and Hospital’s (DHH) Center for Health Care Innovation and Technology. She created quite a stir when she failed at first but eventually succeeded at terminating 69 information technology positions at DHH and giving the contract to the University of New Orleans to run. The 69 employees moved over to UNO’s payroll, saving the state zero, and UNO began collecting an administrative fee of 15 percent to run the IT operations for DHH. Thus, instead of a savings, the state is now paying an additional 15 percent for privatization.

Steckel has moved on again, this time to work her magic as Medicaid Director for North Carolina.

Now let’s move about 400 miles to the west—to Austin—and examine what occurred when similar legislation was passed in Texas a decade ago.

Dave Mann (not to be confused with the premier political analyst of our era, Bob Mann), then a reporter for the Texas Observer, covered the story in June of 2003 and predicted a train wreck would result from the legislation pushed through by Republican Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth. Mann, it turns out, was dead-on in his predictions, which could explain in part why he is that publication’s editor today.

HB 2292 amounted to a “massive rewrite of the state’s social services safety net,” Mann wrote by squeezing 11 existing state agencies into four, all under the control of a powerful governor-appointed commissioner. It also cut many relatively inexpensive healthcare services for the poor, wiping out 1,000 state jobs in the process by privatizing several core state functions (again, sound familiar?)

The bill cut services under the Children’s Health Insurance Program and threw up bureaucratic barriers that purged an estimated 160,000 kids from its rolls. It abolished an entire section of Medicaid that offered temporary aid to families who were unable to pay high medical bills because of illness or accident—knocking an additional 10,000 people month out of medical coverage. It also put the squeeze on nursing home patients by reducing their “personal needs” allowances by 25 percent—from $60 per month to $45 (money nursing home residents spent on such things as toothpaste, shampoo, and shoes).

Proponents of the bill crowed that it would eliminate more than 3,000 state employees and hand over several core functions to large corporations, many of whom were major campaign contributors to key Texas politicians.

Among those outsourced functions were four privately run call centers with operators charged with making the determination of which families would be eligible for state programs like Medicaid, CHIP, Supplemental Security Income, welfare and food stamps.

Would anyone care to guess which company tried desperate to jockey itself into position of grabbing a call center contract? None other than our old friend, ACS, which was already running Medicaid programs in 13 states, including Texas.

ACS ended up not getting the call center contract, but if it had, it would have created the mother of conflicts of interest because by virtue of running the Texas Medicaid program, it was charged with keeping administrative costs down. Thus, the fewer Medicaid cases on the books, the lower the costs and the more money ACS would have stood to make. Thus, had it run the call center in the dual role as guardian of the program, it would have had a financial incentive to approve as few people as possible for Medicaid benefits.

Mann, contacted Monday, said though ACS did not get the call center contract, the operation nonetheless “fell apart within months.”

He said the error rates skyrocketed “because experienced state employees who knew the system were gone” and the contractors knew precious little about the system. “The enrollment process was messed up from the start,” he said, and the state was handed a substantial fine by the federal government.

He said Texas had to try and rehire all the former state employees who had been doing the job before. “They had to bring them back in and have them salvage the system,” he said.

Now, if you happen to wonder how four states—Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and with Carol Steckel now on the scene, most probably North Carolina—could each stumble into the same scenario with Medicaid reforms and privatization of support staff, rest assured it was not a coincidence.

Efforts in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama (and presumably North Carolina) to slash health care benefits under the states’ Medicaid programs come to us courtesy of our old friend, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Though we have not visited ALEC for some time, the organization of some 2000 state legislators and scores of corporate underwriter-sponsors has never been very far from the action.

Among the major targets of ALEC are state health, pharmaceutical and safety net programs, including:

• Opposing health insurance reforms with state constitutional amendments;

• Opposing of efforts to advance public health care;

• Eliminating mandated benefits intended to ensure minimal care for American workers;

• Supporting Medicare privatization;

• Creating barriers to requiring important health benefits;

• Privatizing child support enforcement services.

ALEC’s number-one priority has been to encourage its members (legislators) to introduce bills that would undercut health care reform by prohibiting the Affordable Health Care Act’s insurance mandate.

Led by PhRMA, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer and GlaxoSmithKlein, ALEC’s model bill, the “Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act,” has been introduced in 44 states. Utilizing ideas and information from such groups as the Heritage Foundation, the National Center for Policy Analysis, the Cato Institute, the Goldwater Institute, the James Madison Institute, and the National Federation of Independent Business, ALEC even released a “State Legislators Guild to Repealing ObamaCare” in which a variety of model legislation, including bills to partially privatize Medicaid and SCHIP, is discussed.

Pardon our skepticism, but after the disasters of the Office of Risk Management privatization and the Department of Education voucher fiasco, we can’t help being a bit leery of these quick-fix schemes. The sweetheart CNSI contract with DHH has already proved to be a major $200 million scandal—and that may well be only the beginning.

Up next is an ambitious program to privatize the IT operations of 20 agencies under the Executive Branch. That privatization could mean the loss of some 1100 more state jobs and their duties turned over to a private firm with no grasp of how things are done. That sad scenario has already played out in other states and invariably resulted in cost overruns and repeated failure. There is no reason to expect a better outcome this time.

It was Albert Einstein, after all, who defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals, State Agencies, Transparency | 29 Comments »

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