State Sen. Butch Gautreaux, D-Morgan City, is sounding the alarm about Gov. Bobby Jindal trying again to privatize the Office of Group Benefits, this time outside a legislative session where his plan fell on deaf ears. The OGB is the agency in charge of the health insurance plans for roughly 60,000 state workers and was recently shown to have a $500 million surplus. Lawmakers balked at Jindal’s privatization push during the session.
But in an email this week to members of the Retired State Employees Association, Gautreaux alerted RSEA members that Jindal on Thursday summoned the human resource staff at OGB to report to the Division of Administration. The term-limited Gautreaux, who tore Jindal a new one in his farewell speech on the Senate floor last week, characterized the meeting between the administration and OGB staffers as a gambit by Jindal to again move to privatize the state-operated agency.
Gautreaux urged RSEA members to act quickly:
Your members need to get their stories to the members of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget. Tell them to make it personal. Jindal and his kid staff have no idea how frightening it is to a senior or anyone with chronic illness to not know if there medication will be covered or the procedures will be available under a private carrier yet to be announced.
Even if they do understand, there is not an ounce of compassion in their hearts. You have to have a life experience like most of us have had to understand the fear that many OGB members have at the very threat of losing their coverage.
Unfortunately it appears that the administration is continuing its efforts to privatize the plan. If you haven’t already done so, let the Governor know that you oppose that move...
The Legislature will have one more chance to exert its oversight on this when the Joint Committee on the Budget considers the eventual contract.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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