Now that the joint legislative committee on the budget has approved Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana Health First initiative, the state is hoping to get swift approval for the plan from the Bush administration. Today, Congressman Charles Boustany sent out a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, urging him to grant the state a waiver on federal Medicaid rules that would allow for the proposed reforms. Boustany writes, “across the country, too many patients in Medicaid seek routine care in emergency rooms, which is more expensive and leads to lines, because they lack regular access to a physician. As a doctor, I treated many patients who struggled with the high costs of healthcare, and I am proud Louisiana is taking a lead to lower the cost both for patients and taxpayers.”
The Louisiana Health First initative seeks to reogranize the state’s charity hospital systaem and revamp Medicaid funding by coordinating it through HMO-style private companies, similar to the system used in Florida. The nonprofit Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana recently issued its research brief on the issue, praising the objectives of the plan but also citing concern over its funding and implementation.
In rendering his ruling, District Judge John Trahan all but called the real estate developer a liar for inconsistencies in his accounts of what prompted him to punch a school teacher unconscious.
Frank’s Casing Crew, now doing business as Frank’s International, will make its final appearance on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 Privately Held Companies in Acadiana this year, and once again it will likely be at the top with more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The 75-year-old company specializing in tubular fabrication and installation services to the oil and gas industry plans to offer shares of its stock to the public for the first time.
The defeat, or rather highjacking of House Bill 420 in the final days of this year's Legislative Session, say Reps. Vincent Pierre and Terry Landry, is the result of the propaganda spread by one unidentified local media outlet and an unnamed former state Representative, but nothing to do with the original legislation's lack of checks, balances or details.
City-Parish Council Chairman Brandon Shelvin heaped steady doses of condescending ire on a Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana executive while failing to reveal his financial ties to a BC/BS rival.
Abbeville native David Primeaux was a popular professor until his death late last year, and while he was successful at camouflaging a dark past, he couldn’t outlive it.
Tehmi Chassion’s failure to recuse himself in the school board’s selection of a group health benefits provider raises ‘serious questions’ on whether he violated state ethics law.
He’s a singer. A songwriter. A piano man. A family man. He’s even got his own Wikipedia entry. He’s David Egan. And he knows ancient secrets about the monolithic stones of Stonehenge that he’s not willing to share.
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