Memphis-based Morgan Keegan & Co. has been selected to advise the Jindal administration on privatizing a major health insurance plan for state employees and their dependents.
The Office of Group Benefits provides health plans for nearly a quarter million Louisiana residents. Morgan Keegan was the low bidder among three firms — Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital were also in the running. MK will earn $900,000 to help determine whether privatizing the PPO portion of OGB would be fiscally advantageous to the state. The OGB is running a half billion dollar surplus, one of the main reasons Jindal’s push to privatize the agency ran afoul of lawmakers during the recent legislative session. The plan has also run into stiff opposition from the Retired State Employees Association.
Read more in The Advocate.
Capitol News Service’s Tom Aswell weighed in on the controversy, pointing out, among other things, the role two of the firms — Morgan Keegan and Goldman Sachs — had in the near collapse of the U.S. economy, and the twisted relationships among Morgan Keegan, it’s corporate parent, Regions Financial Corp., and Goldman Sachs. Regions, according to a Reuters report, is considering selling Morgan Keegan, and hired Goldman Sachs to explore “strategic opportunities of such a sale:
[W]hat we have is this incredibly incestuous tangle whereby the Jindal administration has hired Morgan Keegan to explore the possible sale of OGB even as Regions has retained Goldman Sachs to explore the possible sale of Morgan Keegan even though Goldman Sachs less than a year ago was fined $587 million over claims that the bank misled investors in collateralized debt obligations linked to subprime mortgages.
Read Aswell’s blog here.
JUNE 17 If anyone ever wonders why Saints fans hate Atlanta with a capital H, here's a good indication. Radio "professionals" at an Atlanta station created an entire segment around making fun of former Saints player Steve Gleason, who is now paralyzed by ALS. Listen, nobody's ever accused DJs of being rocket scientists. But how could someone think it is amusing to pretend to ask a man with a degenerative, fatal disease if he will be alive next week? The DJs have been fired, and are now whining about how gutless their former bosses are. Wow.
JUNE 18 Here's the latest from the Advocate on the fatal hit-and-run accident allegedly involving the president of the Livingston Parish School Board. He's accused by police of hitting a 21-year-old man on a highway early Sunday and driving away. The man died at a hospital later. On Monday, police seized the president's truck and towed it away. But he's available for board meetings: apparently a $500 bond is sufficient for this type of thing over in St. Helena Parish.
JUNE 18 Former broadcast journalist Griffin Scott has posted this plea on his blog for financial assistance from his readers. Scott, who says he was fired after he wrote something fairly innocuous (for Facebook) on his wall, is suing a media giant for his job back. He's framed himself as David going after a bloated media giant, and he's probably not far off.
JUNE 18 Here's a fairly absurd column posted on DIG Magazine about the completely absurd practice of naming killer storms. Tornadoes don't have names. Blizzards don't have names. But hurricanes do, and there's a big process to bestow them, Jacques Cormery writes. He's right about the crazy assemblage of names -- this year, there's everything from Tanya to Humberto -- and his idea that we don't waste good names on killer storms is a good one.
JUNE 17 Political columnist John Maginnis has some advice for Louisiana Republicans: grow up. After the schism that occurred in this past session - fiscal hawks teaming up with Democrats to spank the Republican "majority" and hand Gov. Jindal his, er, aspirations for continued solon control -- they need to figure out how to get along with each other, Maginnis writes.
JUNE 17 Here's the Picayune's obit story for Dorothy 'Miss Dot' Domilise, the lady who made poboys at the uptown restaurant that bears her name. Miss Dot moved to New Orleans during World War II, where she met and married her husband Sam. When she passed away Friday she was 90, and had spent more than 60 of those years working at the restaurant on Annunciation Street.
JUNE 17 This editorial in the Advocate speaks in favor of the consent decrees that have federal judges overseeing police operations and the sheriff's parish prison in New Orleans. Mayor Landrieu and Sheriff Gusman can't get along, so outside forces, like the Inspector General and the judges, are needed to make sure things run right, the editorial opines.
JUNE 18 Here's a post from Manny Schewitz on Forward Progressives that is good for a chuckle. Manny had an epiphany back in November, and is sharing it with us today: he believes that Fox "News" is killing the GOP by pandering to right wing nuts. Now, don't get it twisted: Manny's not broke up about it. He says he enjoys watching the downward spiral with a shot of whiskey and "a schadenfreude chaser."
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This was a well managed and surplus creating program which he is raiding of -
a one time source of money to balance the budget -
but most importantly to feed the greedy insurance and wall street interests - these are the same insurance and wall street titans whose disastrous excesses and failures almost brought this country down -
and gutted hundreds of pension funds of individuals as well as funds sponsored by state and municipal governments -
We only have to look back 3 years to recall the disastrous excesses and failures of these Wall Street Investment and Insurance titans to which Jindal will be handing our programs - in the pretense of good government.
It is very likeely Jindal will be rewarded?