Dayne Sherman
Column
September 27, 2014
600 Words
The End of Louisiana State Insurance
On Tuesday, September 23, our
school-aged son was given a commonly prescribed medication by his physician. My
wife attempted to get the pharmacy to fill it. We were shocked and horrified to
find that it was rejected by our health insurance: Office of Group Benefits HMO
Plan through BlueCross, a health insurance plan for Louisiana public employees.
For almost 16 years I have been a
member of OGB, and my wife, a teacher, has been a member for 25 years. This is
the second rejection we have received this year through MedImpact. Rejecting my medicine is one thing, but rejecting
our son's is another. We have never seen anything like this in our years with
OGB.
You will recall that OGB was privatized
under Gov. Bobby Jindal, and nearly all of the $500,000,000 trust fund has been
stolen. Soon, all money dedicated to funding state workers’ insurance will be
gone. The money was pilfered by Jindal in an effort to fill holes in his
economically disastrous state budget. But this will mean 230,000 Louisiana citizens
are about to lose all semblances of health coverage on January 1.
Earlier on Tuesday, the former
Health and Hospitals head, Bruce Greenstein, was indicted, and the state
attorney general declared the new state health insurance changes illegal through
an opinion solicited by Rep. John Bel Edwards of Amite. I thought this might
stop the train wreck.
But later in the day I had to fight
tooth and nail to get our child’s medicine. I had to contact state
representatives and the media. We were finally able to get the meds filled on
Friday afternoon. I wasn’t looking for a freebie. We pay hundreds of dollars a
month for health insurance, have co-pays for everything, and we paid $55 for the
prescription. We just wanted the doctor-prescribed medication. Not the
insurance-mandated meds.
Most employees and retirees will not
be so lucky. Louisiana state employees and retirees need to understand one
fact. If all of the proposed OGB changes go through as Gov. Jindal plans, they
are effectively uninsured. Health coverage is over, and it will not be coming
back.
Sure, Kristy Nichols, Jindal’s
spokesperson, says the OGB trust fund was too big (Insanity!), that they are
“right-sizing” the insurance plans (Destroying them!), and they’re now offering
better options called Pelican HRA 1000, Pelican HSA 775, Magnolia Local, and
other names worthy of George Orwell’s 1984.
According to Nichols, the new plans will be pure utopia. But when an OGB member
gets a letter from MedImpact of San Diego, California, a cold memo rejecting a
medication prescribed by a doctor here in Louisiana, let’s call it what it is:
a “death panel” letter.
As one person put it, “Bobbycare” is
health care without any care at all. How true.
While our governor flits from Iowa
to New Hampshire playing presidential candidate, a delusional quest to anyone
but himself, Louisiana goes the way of Rome on fire, burning, burning, burning.
Jindal is like a hummingbird on crystal meth. The wings are moving at a
blinding pace, but the overall flight is completely doomed.
I have three questions about the OGB privatization and the missing half billion dollars: Who will go to prison for
stealing state funds through a scheme worthy of a bank heist? Will the FBI
investigate the theft of public money? And will the legislators stop the train
wreck?
Let’s all hope and pray that the
FBI, the courts, or the Louisiana Legislature will prevent Jindal from
destroying one more area of Louisiana that worked before he came into office:
the Office of Group Benefits.
