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Jindal, aka the Petulant Paranoid, teagues yet another state official for (gasp!) having opinion, possession of integrity

May 8, 2014 by tomaswell

Bobby Jindal the Petulant Paranoid has teagued yet another high-ranking state official, LouisianaVoice has learned.

This time the victim is said to have been only a few months from retirement.

The governor who publicly advocates openness, accountability and transparency everywhere in the U.S. except Louisiana, has shown on repeated occasions that he cannot stomach any difference of opinion among state employees at any level, classified or unclassified—or even from legislators.

His paranoia rose (or sank, depending upon one’s preferred descriptive verb) to a new level on Thursday, however, when he fired Gary Crockett, former administrator at Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville just two days after the House Health and Welfare Committee voted 10-8 to close the facility.

Crockett last year tried to keep administration-ordered layoffs at the hospital to a minimum but was forced to make deep cuts in personnel.

The irony of Jindal’s ongoing purge, aka dissident cleansing is that Crockett had already left his $144,650-a-year position at Huey P. Long because of his differences with the administration. He took a position at another state medical facility where he thought—incorrectly, it turns out—he could ride out the rest of his career..

Word out of the State Capitol is that Jindal felt that Crockett may have been providing information to legislators opposed to the closure of the hospital as part of Jindal’s flawed state hospital privatization plan that less than a week ago was shot down by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services because of the creative but prohibited method of financing the privatization plans.

The federal action threw the state budget into chaos literally only days before the budget was to go to the House for debate on Thursday (today, May 8) because of a $400 million hole it blew in the state spending document.

Without going into specific names, suffice it to say that heads roll whenever a discouraging word is heard in Jindal’s presence and now the latest is what is becoming a very long line of teagueites, so named in honor of former Office of Group Benefits Director Tommy Teague, fired on April 15, 2011, and his wife Melody, fired about six months earlier as a grants reviewer but later reinstated.

One recent Teagueite, a friend of Crockett who must remain nameless, said of Jindal’s latest action, “There’s no other way to say it except to say the man is evil.”

Attempts by LouisianaVoice to reach Crockett Thursday for comment were unsuccessful.

 

 

Posted in Contract, Contracts, DHH, Governor's Office, Health Care, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization, Teague | 14 Comments »

Insurers’ auto repair tactics only part of problem; Jindal old firm McKinsey Co. coached Katrina on claims delays, denials

May 8, 2014 by tomaswell

The brewing legal battle between Louisiana automobile body shops, represented by the Louisiana Collision Industry Association (LaCIA), and a couple of dozen insurance companies has far reaching implications that go much further than just the current dispute between the LaCIA and the insurance companies, according to information obtained by LouisianaVoice.

Efforts by the automobile insurance companies, led by industry giants State Farm, Allstate, Progressive and GEICO, date back to the 1990s and continued through Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and now the companies have moved into what one LouisianaVoice reader calls managed care for the auto repair business by the insurance industry.

Along the way, the insurance companies received invaluable assistance and coaching from McKinsey and Co., the company for whom Gov. Jindal worked for several months in his only private sector gig before entering public service. The advice provided by McKinsey came at a steep price but in the end, it helped the insurance companies to reap record profits, even in the wake of Katrina, one of the worst hurricanes in terms of dollar cost to ever strike the U.S. mainland—at the expense of thousands of homeowners in New Orleans, New York and New Jersey and the Mississippi coast.

Between 1992 through 1997, Allstate executives and their consultants from McKinsey met at the Allstate’s Northbrook, Ill., campus, to develop a complete overhaul of Allstate’s claims system. What emerged was the now infamous policy of “from good hands to boxing gloves” method of dealing with policy holders/claimants who refused the company’s initial settlement offers, which typically were far below replacement costs.

In 2003, the largest wildfire in California history destroyed 2,232 homes, including Julie Tunnel’s $300,000 home. Her insurance adjuster, from State Farm, offered her $184,000 as a cost of rebuilding. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nw&pname=mm_0907_story1.html

That “deny, delay, defend” strategy was revealed in its stark nakedness when it was learned that McKinsey was coaching Allstate and State Farm on methods to delay and/or deny claims of homeowners in the New Orleans and north shore areas and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast who suffered devastating property losses during Hurricane Katrina. One of those victimized by the less-than-good-faith-dealings was none other than then U.S. Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi.

It was in the wake of $4.2 billion in claims stemming from 1989’s Hurricane Hugo which battered the Carolinas that Allstate first sought the services of McKinsey and State Farm quickly followed suit. McKinsey subsequently generated 13,000 pages of documents, including PowerPoint slides in developing the strategy for higher profits which would quickly give the two giants the distinction of ranking among the worst insurance companies in America. Those rankings placed Allstate at the top of the worst list and State Farm fourth. http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/justice/hs.xsl/2323.htm

With Allstate’s CEO proclaiming that the company’s mission was “to earn a return for our shareholders” (as opposed say, to such a radical philosophy as customer service, good faith settlements and claimant satisfaction), Good Hands adjusters worked under strict guidelines to protect the bottom line or risk losing their jobs. http://stlouis.legalexaminer.com/automobile-accidents/allstate-you-are-not-in-good-hands/

So by virtue of its adjusters’ adoption of the fundamental mantra of “Allstate gains—others must lose,” the company reaped $4.6 billion in profits in 2007, even as it was still denying, delaying and defending against record property loss claims from Katrina just two years before and Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2006. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/insurance-claim-delays-industry-profits-allstate-mckinsey-company_n_1139102.html

Almost unperceptively to all but auto repair shops and their customers, the insurance companies also embarked upon a similar ploy to increase profits in the area of auto insurance while at the same time forcing auto body shops into accepting considerably lower profits or to use less desirable after-market, or generic, parts.

New Jersey auto repair shops have sharply criticized State Farm’s cozy relationship with a company called Parts Trader, an online procurement program out of Illinois. Spokesmen for auto repair associations in both New Jersey and Mississippi claim the forced implementation of the Parts Trader program is in direct violation of a 1963 Consent Decree and is State Farm’s way “to get back into the aftermarket parts business and not have their handprint on it.”

“The profit we make on our parts goes to offset the insufficient labor rate,” said Jeff McDowell, president of the New Jersey chapter of the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers. “Materials go up, and we don’t get an increase.” http://onlinedigeditions.com/article/Partstrader+In+New+Jersey%3F++Not+Without+A+Fight!+/1519060/0/article.html

In October of 1999, CBS News reported that an Illinois judge awarded $730 million to State Farm policyholders whose vehicles were repaired with after-market parts. It was the second such decision within a week. Just days before, a jury awarded $456 million in another case involving knockoff replacement parts. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-farm-loses-big-in-court/

Immediately following the two adverse decisions, State Farm announced it would temporarily suspend the use of the after-market parts in favor of parts made by auto manufacturers—the moral equivalent of a politician’s apologizing for his inexcusable behavior only after being caught in an extra-marital affair.

The generic parts have come under criticism from auto body shops as being cheap, flimsy, imitation parts that don’t fit and which have poor finishes, don’t hold paint, have little, if any, corrosion protection and which lack structural integrity.

But in the interest of their own bottom line, the insurance companies were perfectly willing to foist these parts upon their unsuspecting policyholders who simply grit their teeth and write the checks whenever premiums increase.

But with the filing of lawsuits last August in Mississippi http://partschecklive.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/partstrader-ms.pdf and in Florida here and Indiana here earlier this year by auto repair shops—and the expected filing in Louisiana—the repair shops are teaming up to present a united front against yet another profit-driven tactic by the insurance companies: forcing shops to either reduce their hourly labor charges or risk having business directed to other shops by the insurers.

The Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) issued a strong statement in opposition to the practice of the insurers last September in which it said the organization “takes exception to business mandates that property and casualty insurers impose upon collision repair businesses. http://www.fenderbender.com/FenderBender/September-2013/SCRS-Releases-Statement-About-State-Farm-PartsTrader-Lawsuit/

Apparently the insurance companies have no problem with the concept that auto repair shops should be prohibited from making a fair profit—especially if benefits their own shareholders.

Complaints to the Louisiana Department of Insurance, meanwhile, have fallen upon deaf ears, according to several shop owners.

Small wonder. As might be expected, Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon derives the bulk of his campaign contributions from the companies his office regulates. Who else, after all, would be motivated to contribute to the campaign to elect an insurance commissioner?

But even Gov. Bobby Jindal has benefitted from the generosity of the insurance industry to the tune of $119,000 since his initial run for governor in 2003. Of that amount, at least $15,000 came from three companies named as defendants in the Florida and Indiana lawsuits: $5,000 each from State Farm, Allstate, and Zurich American.

Donelon, who would be expected to fair even better from the insurance industry, did. He received $30,000 from defendants in the Indiana and Florida lawsuits—Liberty Mutual ($5,000), Progressive ($6,500), Allstate ($2,500), GEICO ($11,000), State Farm ($2,500), Security National ($1,500), and Travelers ($1,000).

Overall, Donelon has received more than $675,000 from insurance companies just since 2006, the year he took office.

Attorney General investigator Randy Ishee has been looking into the practice, called program agreements, whereby the insurance companies are demanding that repair shops enter into agreements to lower their hourly rates or be faced with blackballing by the insurers. One representative for the repair shops said a State Farm representative became belligerent while making his demands.

Alysia Hanks, executive director of the Louisiana Collision Industry Association (LaCIA), said Ishee’s probe has developed so much information that he found it necessary to recruit a second investigator to assist him.

LouisianaVoice was told that Ishee had communicated in writing with the Department of Insurance on at least two occasions concerning the program agreements but when a public records request for those communications was made of the Insurance Department, we were told the department was in possession of no such documents.

Posted in Attorney General, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lawsuits | 3 Comments »

Unlike a good neighbor, State Farm may be undermining choice of auto repair shops; same for the good hands folks

May 7, 2014 by tomaswell

Unlike a good neighbor, State Farm Insurance may be trying to undermine policyholders’ choices of who they want to perform their auto repairs.

And those Good Hands may not be so good, either.

Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell apparently is preparing to join other states, namely Indiana and Florida, in filing an antitrust lawsuit against State Farm and possibly other insurance companies for their attempts to artificially control and depress automotive damage repair labor rates by repair shops, according to information obtained by LouisianaVoice.

Caldwell’s office has been bombarded with complaints from automotive body shops that State Farm and other companies have attempted to get shops to sign “program agreements” with the insurance companies that would adversely impact profit margins of the repair shops. Those who refuse to sign the program agreements are removed from the insurance companies’ preferred lists, the complaints say, in effect, driving business away from those shops.

Attorneys in Florida and Indiana claim in their lawsuits that the insurance companies, particularly State Farm, have engaged in “an ongoing pattern and practice of coercion and of implied threats” to force lower hourly rates. “Failure to comply results in the insurance companies either “steering” customers away from the plaintiff’s businesses or, failing that, refusing to pay for certain repair procedures and/or charges.

By forcing the program agreements upon the shops, which count on insurance customers for 70 to 95 percent of their business, the shops’ profits are adversely affected but the shops have little choice but to comply.

While State Farm has been identified as the moving force behind the program agreements, other insurers follow State Farm’s lead, the Florida lawsuit claims, “The remaining defendants intentionally and by agreement and/or conscious parallel behavior, specifically advised the plaintiffs they will pay no more than State Farm pays for labor,” the lawsuit says, adding that the insurance companies have conducted no surveys of their own to determine market rates.

The Florida suit also claims that the insurance companies imply that the non-cooperating body shops perform inferior work. “When a repair shop is deemed noncompliant to the direct repair agreement, the insurer will tell its clients ‘a particular chosen shop is not on the preferred provider list,’ advising that quality issues have arisen with that particular ship, that complaints have been received about the shop from other consumers, that the shop charges more than any other shop in the area and these additional costs will have to be paid by the consumers, that repairs at the disfavored shop will take much longer than at other, preferred shops and the consumer will be responsible for rental car fees beyond a certain date, and that the defendant cannot guarantee the work of that shop as it can at other shops,” the Florida petition says.

Trying to control auto repair prices is one thing but doing it by spreading innuendo and outright falsehoods about the reputations of auto body shops and the quality of their work borders on outright libel.

The Florida lawsuit was filed by 20 auto repair shops on Feb. 24 in that state’s Middle District Federal Court in Orlando and names more than 40 companies as defendants. A&E Auto Body, Inc., is the lead plaintiff in the Florida action.

Fourteen Indiana repair shops, led by lead plaintiff the Indiana Autobody Association, followed Florida in filing suit on April 2 in the Southern District of U.S. District Court in Indianapolis and named as defendants 29 insurance companies but also allege similar issues with third-party administrators (TPAs) which handle glass claims for insurers.

“…The concessions demanded by insurers in exchange for remaining on the direct repair program were not balanced by the purported benefits,” the Indiana petition says. “The defendants, particularly State Farm, have utilized these agreements to exert control over the shops in a variety of manners, and well beyond the constraints imposed by an ordinary business agreement.”

The Indiana plaintiffs claim that failure or refusal by a shop “results in either removal from the DRP (direct repair program) agreements, combined with improper ‘steering’ of customers away from the plaintiff’s business, or simply punishment to decrease the number of customers utilizing the plaintiff’s services.”

The suit ways if a repair shop persists in efforts to raise labor rates, “State Farm takes one or more ‘corrective measures.’

“It (State Farm) will go into the individual shop’s survey responses and unilaterally and wrongfully alter the labor rate listed without the knowledge or consent of the shop and use this lowered rate to justify its determination of the ‘market rate.’ It will threaten to remove the shop from the direct repair program to coerce compliance,” the petition said, adding that State Farm will actually remove a shop from the DRP.

Both the Florida and Indiana lawsuits are seeking compensatory damages and Florida is asking the court to order that insurers cease the practice of steering. In Indiana, plaintiffs are seeking compensatory, punitive and treble damages.

Caldwell and Randy Ishee, an investigator for the attorney general’s office, will attend the next meeting of the Louisiana Collision Industry Association (LaCIA), scheduled for May 22 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Monroe at 6:30 p.m.

LaCIA Executive Director Alysia Hanks said the association has been in contact with Ishee, who she said “has knowledge of what our industry is going through. “He isn’t happy with what he has come across so far and last week in informed me that, due to the huge amount of information he is gathering, (the attorney general’s office) has brought in another investigator for our cases.”

Posted in Attorney General, Lawsuits | Tagged | 5 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

May 6, 2014 by tomaswell

“At the age of 24, Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster appointed him as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, giving him authority over 40 percent of the state’s budget. Under his direction, Louisiana’s Medicaid program went from a $400 million deficit to a $220 million surplus.”

—Forbes Magazine writer Avik Roy, in a puff piece on Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in October of 2011—right after Jindal won re-election to a second term and shortly before his poll numbers plummeted and less than three years before his plan for privatizing the LSU hospital system crashed and burned.

 

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, Notable Quotables | 3 Comments »

‘Bobby Jindal: the Man, the Legend’ (but mostly legend), by LouisianaVoice (via couple of Forbes magazine puff pieces)

May 6, 2014 by tomaswell

 

Any successful stage magician must be adept at the art of misdirection so as to be able to successfully pull off his sleight of hand maneuvers while the audience’s eyes are focused elsewhere.

That being the case, just call Gov. Bobby Jindal the aspiring-but-not-quite-there-yet magician: the wannabe.

Rather than coming off as an inept stage magician, however, Jindal more closely resembles the old traveling snake oil salesman standing on the back of his wagon full of patent medicine as he assures the crowd gathered around him to “Try this: it’ll cure what’s ailing you.”

“It’s guaranteed to fix education, health care, the economy, deteriorating roads and bridges, crumbling college and university physical plant, pensions, prisons, budget deficits, the environment, poverty, coastal erosion, and population loss—all while reducing your taxes and giving more corporate tax breaks and handing out more consulting contracts.

“But don’t look at me when I’m telling you this; instead, watch what those bureaucrats in Washington are doing. They’re the one who are wrong-headed, who have no legal basis for doing what they’re doing.

“But you’d better hurry. That’s right, step right up and get your Miracle Jindal Juice ‘cause I can’t stay here long. I have to be moving on. I’ve gotta be in Iowa next week, New Hampshire after that and then Washington, New York, Los Angeles…

That’s the Bobby Jindal we all know here in Louisiana—the real Bobby Jindal and not the Bobby Jindal of mythical proportions being foisted upon the rest of the country by Forbes magazine, Fox News, Politico and the op-ed pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Of course he does have his supporters closer to home, namely a publisher of a Baton Rouge business publication who was Jindal’s campaign finance chairman and who now serves as an appointed member of the LSU Board of Stuporvisors, an editorial columnist for the Baton Rouge Advocate who doesn’t even live in Louisiana (he resides in Mobile, Alabama), and an associate professor up in Shreveport who contributes to a blog supported by a lot of really bizarre advertising (“highly valued sponsors,” they’re called). Here are a few examples:

http://www.familysurvivalkit.org/new/bclf/index_6.php?aff_id=7703&subid=tpA04252014fsc&trid=1021a45ee3d734d499e32716a484ab&k={k}

http://www.healthrevelations.net/HTML5/Encode_New/Transcript/?pco=LHRVQ470&efo=HRV140219A&xco=XHRVQ470

http://finance.moneyandmarkets.com/reports/RWR/american-revolution/?em=&c=&sc=COCO&ec=5947104

http://www.omegaflexformula.com/video/?utm_source=thejrwa&utm_medium=email&utm_term=jointmiracle&utm_content=omegaflex&utm_campaign=041814conservative

But enough of that. Let’s get back to Bobby Jindal: the Man, the Legend.

Perhaps it is only appropriate that as a child, the governor who exists in an insulated fantasy world where he is always right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, took his name Bobby from a character on the saccharin-laden sitcom The Brady Bunch where every problem was solved and every crisis was overcome in a 30-minute time slot. Too bad it just doesn’t work that way in the real world.

If, while sitting on the living room floor as a kid, he had gotten hooked instead on The Beverly Hillbillies, Do you think Louisiana would have elected Jethro Jindal? (Before you answer that, think Swamp People and Duck Dynasty.) Jay Leno joked that it was probably a good thing Jindal didn’t watch Gilligan’s Island growing up lest he might have adopted the name “Little Buddy.”

Perhaps he should have; after all, he has been lost for six years now.

Instead of staying at home and doing his job, Jindal would rather flit about the country, telling anyone who will listen how great he is, how wonderful his programs are, and how he personally has had to overcome the dictatorial hand of Washington in general and Obama in particular.

Misdirection.

And now, the latest insult to his constituents here at home is an op-ed he penned in Sunday’s (May 4) Forbes magazine which leaves the reader (in Louisiana, anyway) wondering if Forbes is really this desperate to fill its pages with self-serving, aggrandizing claptrap.

The piece, titled How We Achieved Louisiana’s Economic Surge, is filled with misleading statistics designed to convince readers that he took over a cesspool of ineptitude six years ago and turned it into paradise on earth for every living, breathing citizen of the state.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/05/04/how-we-achieved-louisianas-economic-surge/

 

Following are excerpts from Jindal’s latest self-anointing op-ed, with our comments, in italics, following each of Roy’s observations:

  • Right off the bat, he boasts of a “surge of economic growth, and more and better-paying jobs.”
  • Yet, Louisiana is rated better than Wyoming in closing the gender pay gap. In Louisiana, women make only 67 percent of what a man makes for performing the same job (as opposed to Maryland, Nevada and Vermont where women make 85 percent of what men make, and in Washington, D.C., where it’s 90 percent.

Misdirection.

  • “Louisiana has the lowest unemployment rate in the south, tied for seventh-lowest in the nation,” he writes.
  • But Louisiana’s 18 percent poverty rate ranks fifth highest in the nation, according to data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Jindal’s lapdogs, the Louisiana Legislature, recently beat back efforts to raise the minimum wage.

Misdirection.

  • We shifted from a government-run hospital system to a health system that embraces ingenuity and efficiency…”
  • Yet, Jindal refused to expand Medicaid even though 18.3 percent of Louisiana citizens, mostly working poor, are without health insurance—lower than only Texas (24.6 percent), Nevada (23.5 percent), New Mexico (21.9 percent), Florida (21.5 percent), Georgia (19.2 percent), Alaska (19 percent), and Arkansas (19.4 percent). Oh, and Louisiana continues to rank number one in the nation in obesity rate.
  • “Per-capita income in our state is at its highest level ever.”
  • The Bureau of Business & Economic Research, however, lists Louisiana at 29th in the nation in per capital income last year—not last, but certainly not setting the pace, either.

Misdirection.

  • Of all the statistics about our state’s progress, I’m proudest of the six straight years of in-migration…”
  • Louisiana has seen its congressional strength drop from eight to seven and now six with some saying it may drop to five after the 2020 census. So where’s that in-migration, Governor?

As absurd as that article was, one also published by Forbes in October of 2011, seems in retrospect to be a parody of Jindal’s administration rather than a serious treatise by writer Avik Roy:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/10/24/louisiana-gov-bobby-jindal-is-piling-up-an-impressive-health-reform-resume/

 

  • “At the age of 24, Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster appointed him as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, giving him authority over 40 percent of the state’s budget. Under his direction, Louisiana’s Medicaid program went from a $400 million deficit to a $220 million surplus.”
  • Really? So, Governor, what about now? Where is that surplus today?

 

  • “National Review has published online Jim Geraghty’s lengthy profile of Governor Jindal. Geraghty discusses at lengthhow Gov. Jindal restructured Louisiana’s unique charity hospital system.”
  • In light of recent developments, we’ll bet you Geraghty’s report would make interesting reading today—if one could stop laughing long enough to finish it.

 

  • “At Earl K. Long (Hospital in Baton Rouge), 63 percent of the emergency room visits are for non-emergency care.”
  • Prisoners at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, about 40 miles from Baton Rouge, were routinely treated for all ailments and injuries—emergency and non-emergency—at Earl K. Long, thus accounting for the large percentage of non-emergency visits.

 

  • In October of 2011, “Jindal won a second term as Governor, garnering the highest percentage of votes by a gubernatorial candidate since the state introduced its current “jungle primary” system in 1978.”
  • Granted, Avik Roy has the creds, being a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and having served as health care policy advisor to Mitt Romney, but he really shouldn’t get too excited about that 2011 election. Yes, Jindal got 67 percent; but it was 67 percent of a total turnout of less than 20 percent and his strongest challenger was an unknown school teacher who had something in the neighborhood of $2500 in campaign funds against Jindal’s $11 million. Anything less than 90 percent should’ve been consider an embarrassing failure.

 

  • “Jindal was the first governor to endorse Rick Perry for President.”
  • Uh, yeah…so? And how’d that work out for them?

 

  • “In Perry’s book, Fed Up, he describes Jindal as ‘one of the brightest, most capable governors in the country.’ Keep an eye on him.”
  • Damned good advice, Mr. Roy. We’ll keep that in mind.

Misdirection.

Posted in DHH, Elections, Governor's Office, Health Care | 6 Comments »

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