Senator: Consider special session on funding hospitals

The Louisiana Legislature should consider calling itself into special session if the Jindal administration does not provide answers on its plans for patient care at public hospitals hit by budget cuts, a state senator said Monday.

“If we can’t get information about where care will be provided and how patients are going to get there, I’m going to urge my colleagues to call themselves into special session,” said state Sen. Ben Nevers, whose district includes LSU’s hard-hit Lallie Kemp Medical Center in Independence.

Budget cuts, ordered by Gov. Bobby Jindal, take away one-third of the hospital’s budget of just over $40 million. The LSU Board of Supervisors approved reductions that would eliminate the hospital oncology unit, its HIV treatment program as well as other health care services.

Senate President John Alario said legislators should have a plan before considering a special session. “It would be a mistake for the Legislature to call itself in to have a debate rather than having a solution,” said Alario, R-Westwego.

Alario said he wants to know what Nevers has in mind.

Alario said it only takes a majority vote for legislators to call themselves into session, but it takes a two-thirds vote to override Jindal’s decisions.

Late last week, state Democratic Party chairwoman Karen Peterson called for legislators to return to the State Capitol to consider eliminating some tax exemptions to free up money for health care. A legislative panel is in the midst of a study of the more than $1 billion in tax exemptions on the books today.

Nevers said he’s asked that the state Senate Health and Welfare Committee open hearings on the cuts imposed as a result of a sudden drop in federal support for the state’s Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.

“I felt like we should have been a part of the discussion” on how to deal with the Medicaid reduction, said Nevers, D-Bogalusa. “All this was released in a press conference.”

Nevers said people are going to end up in the emergency rooms of other area hospitals absent a patient care delivery plan.

Alario acknowledged frustration among some lawmakers where the cutbacks affect their districts.

“There are a couple of pockets like that in the state,” Alario said. “The administration had to make some hard decisions. I’m not sure that the Legislature would have had a much better solution than this.

“It certainly would have been nice if they had conferred with them,” Alario said.

Comments

1) Comment by IMVOR - 29/08/2012

Local officials, faced with similar opposition by Rick Perry, are taking matters into their own hands. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/texas-counties-consider-going-it-alone-on-medicaid-expansion/2012/08/26/f35686dc-e322-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story.html The whining about "socialism" is getting awfully tiresome. Ideologies do not really matter very much at all when people are sick and have no treatment or hungry and have no food, or cold (or hot) and have no shelter. Maybe we ought to get practical for a change and start dealing with our problems as rationally as possible instead of worrying about what label to put on it. Good grief.

2) Comment by TommyRucker - 28/08/2012

Unfortunately more socialistic driven solutions are NOT going to solve this problem, it has not worked in the public school system and will not work in the health care system. It is not the nature of the political animals in the modern American political system today to do what is right and what is needed as we have a majority of Americans today (probably not in Louisiana) who have become very very dependent on government and want to become more dependent on government and thus really believe these false political promises. We cannot afford this utopia society as promised by these political 'leaders' but we sure can do a much better job and with a lot less money if we are willing to sacrifice and work together. We need to get involved with the process or it is going to destroy us (the destruction is already under way-wake up)

3) Comment by TommyRucker - 28/08/2012

It is time to start to consolidate ALL health care as it as become nothing more than a BIG BUSINESS operation. These hospitals like many health care operations today are nothing more but cash cows for communities and ( givers of jobs) and it is time for a massive shift back to caring for people with the highest quality at the lowest possible cost. This can be done but it is going to take consolidation of many health care facilities and the elimination of a lot of very questionable procedures and practices (chiropractor care, acupuncture, etc. etc.) We need to get back to basic and get better organized, only then can we really provide quality health care at a reasonable price. It can happen with good leadership and a majority of people who better understand the situation and are willing to support sacrifices for the common good-keeping these hospitals open in many cases is nothing more than pandering to the politics of theses areas. A comprehensive review and change of the entire broken and expensive system is needed and this socialistic, false promise approach is not working and will never work. We are seeing the results of a growing socialistic, political expansion of 'false promises' and it will destroy us if we don't stop it and make radical changes. It will CHANGE, the question is only going to be how long we are going to put off the required solution, as the longer we put it off, the more difficult will be the solution.

4) Comment by JBradleyM.D. - 28/08/2012

Please sign this petition asking our legislators to call a special session to address this crisis: http://www.change.org/petitions/louisiana-legislators-convene-a- special-legislative-session-to-address-the-healthcare-crisis