Shut up, go back to work, do not ask any questions

As we've already noted, the sale of Blue Cross Louisiana to a notorious for-profit corporation is a terrible deal. Even your also notorious Louisiana Legislature seems to understand this. 

Legislators, who came prepared with detailed questions about every aspect of the complex transaction, returned repeatedly throughout the marathon hearing to Elevance’s track record in other states. The company has racked up more than $26 million in regulatory fines for violations that included denying coverage of needed medical care, failing to cover preventive service like immunizations and breast cancer screening, and failing to pay claims in a timely manner.

Louisiana, where Elevance administers the Healthy Blue Medicaid plan, was among the seven states where the company has incurred fines.

But, because the deal also grants the new Governor and Commissioner of Insurance seats on the board of the new entity the sale will create, and sway over how some of the proceeds are spent, it will likely gain the approval of both. The Governor, in fact, has already made a public endorsement.  

There appears to be public momentum gathering against the sale. Note the skeptical legislators above and, here, even our reactionary Treasury Secretary John Fleming is militating against it today.  In the meantime, though, let's look at Jeff Landry's stated reasons for accepting his bribe lending his support. To begin with, he says it's a good excuse to boot people off of Medicaid.

Landry’s strongest comments in favor of the Blue Cross sale centered on the nonprofit foundation, Accelerate Louisiana Initiative, that will funded with the bulk of sale proceeds and surplus Blue Cross reserves, for a total of more than $3 billion.

The foundation will seek to operate as a nonprofit public-private trust, a designation that will require a change of state law. It is to have four focus areas, all centered on poverty and health outcomes. Landry praised the first pillar, which supposedly would move people from dependence to independence.

“In other words, we’re going to be able to have an organization that is going to work towards trying to move those people off of Medicaid,” the Republican governor said.

It used to be, you had to just pull the inference out of the policy choice itself and explain how hostile the intent was.  Nowadays, they just come out and say what they are doing.  

The other thing they've given up on pretending to anymore is the notion that there are fiscally "conservative principles" at work here. It's about being cruel for the sake of being cruel.

That federal government-sponsored health insurance program for poor people was dramatically expanded under Landry’s predecessor, Democrat John Bel Edwards. Almost half the state’s population is now on Medicaid, most of which is paid for by the federal government.

Landry said Accelerate money will also be used to help get the state’s “safety net programs” working in sync. He used the example of a hypothetical patient with Type II diabetes, a chronic health condition that leads to other health problems. Landry said the patient might receive a “shiny brochure” from her doctor telling her to eat healthy and lose weight to help her condition.

“Then, she puts it in her purse, goes to Piggly Wiggly and goes down the aisle to the soda, chips, cookies, and then she goes to the cash register with her Louisiana Purchase card,” said Landry, using an old trope that criticizes welfare recipients. “How about if we had an organization that helps the government start to integrate the food stamp program with the Department of Health, so instead of getting a fancy brochure we could give her $100” if she engages in healthy lifestyle choices,” he said.

“When else are we going to get that opportunity again?” he said. “Those are the things we will do.”

Poor people deserve to be bullied and shamed by the state.  It's the only way to keep the help in line.  And that is, in fact, all they are good for. Landry is saying that out loud as well. 

The plans for the foundation, which were changed late last year as Blue Cross sought approval from state regulators for the deal for a second time, now specifically prohibit research money for health outcomes from going to higher educational institutions — except for the LSU-affiliated Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.

Landry said that giving the money to other Louisiana research institutions, a list that would include LSU and Tulane University, would be wasteful.

“I don’t want money going to higher education. I want the money used in our workforce because everywhere I go, people are telling me they don’t have skilled labor. And I’ve seen these deals around the country and all the money gets sucked up by the universities and we got nothing,” Landry said.

When we consider this is how the Governor view his people; not so much as humans with human appetites for joy and knowledge and experience to be nurtured, but only as a "workforce" to be disciplined; then it's easier to understand why he's keen to sell their health care off to capitalist vultures at the nearest opportunity. It's an extremely efficient way of liquidating lives into profits.