Vote rescheduled on Jindal health outsourcing plan
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration is returning to lawmakers this week to ask for approval to outsource a state employee health insurance plan.
Jindal's top budget adviser shelved a vote last week when it became clear the contract between the Office of Group Benefits and Blue Cross/Blue Shield didn't have enough votes to win passage.
Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols is scheduled to revisit the request Friday with the House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees.
The meeting comes after two Republican members on the House committee were ousted from the panel, a day after they sided with opponents of Jindal's outsourcing proposal.
Jindal proposes hiring Blue Cross as a cost-cutting move to manage an insurance plan that covers workers, retirees and their dependents. Critics worry the change could harm health benefits.
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.