A reader brought this column by Eric Zorn to my attention. It appeared in the Chicago Tribune.
The state of Louisiana is “reforming” hospice care for patients on Medicare. It will stop offering hospice care for many elderly people.
As part of his reforms, Jindal has started closing or privatizing the state’s public hospitals. See here and here and here.
He cuts most where the needs are greatest. This could catapult him to national stardom. The prestigious Brookings Institution in DC recently invited him to discuss his historic efforts to privatize public education.
As the Shreveport Times described the situation:
“BATON ROUGE — The start of February brings an end to programs that care for some of the most vulnerable citizens of the state, those in the final days of their lives and children at risk for mental health problems, the latest casualties of Louisiana’s budget woes.
Gov. Bobby Jindal made the cuts in mid-December to help close a nearly $166 million deficit in the current fiscal year.
And the cuts are only likely to get worse. The governor and lawmakers will have to deal with another $1.2 billion budget gap for the fiscal year that begins July 1, in a poverty-troubled state where so many people look to the state for assistance….
Among the reductions announced in December, doctors and hospitals that care for the poor, disabled and elderly in the Medicaid program will be paid less. Dental benefits to pregnant women through Medicaid will be cut off. Additional cuts are falling on the LSU hospitals that care for the poor and uninsured in north Louisiana. Dollars for juvenile justice treatment programs are shrinking.
The deepest cuts to services were made in the health and social services departments.”
As a New Orleans journalist put it: “In effect, Huey Long’s mantra of “Share the Wealth” has been replaced by Jindal’s dogma of tax virginity and privatization. Where Long preached, “Every man a king,” Jindal now says, effectively, “You’re on your own, pal.””
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just to clarify, the item was on Eric Zorn’s blog – he posted a snippet of the article without comment. He does write full-length columns which appear in the printed version of the paper, but this was just on his blog, not the printed paper.
But thank you for highlighting it. It’s all connected.
Why is it “they” can always find money for things that benefit themselves and their friends:
Endless Mandatory Testing
Opening charter schools
Databases to track everyone and everything
Optional Trillion dollar wars
Bail outs for banks
Tax breaks for big corporations and loopholes for super wealthy citizens
Plenty of money, no problems
But anything that benefits the average citizen..they cluck their tongues, shake their heads and say we all have to make sacrifices.
Sick
Paul Krugman has and a column about Mr. Jindal in the NY Times:
Aren’t we supposed to be caring for the poor, the sick, and the defenseless? I love how THEY keep accusing us of class warfare while they try to put the screws to the common American. Let’s remember our history lessons. When will we hear, “Let them eat cake”?
This is why Bobby Jindal needs to be impeached and Edwin Edwards pardoned and returned to office. Edwards may have bee a crook, but at least he was a crook for his own people.
Is this related to education, or is this propaganda attempting to attack Bobby Jindal because of his education views? I’m thinking it may be better to stick specifically to relevant issues of education, rather than ancillary issues – however important they may be in other facets of social service.
Well, it’s all tied in together, don’t you see?
Lehrer, I’m afraid I don’t see the connection between hospice care for the elderly and education reform.
It’s the general attitude of those in power. They know what’s best for the rest of us, despite being so far removed from the real world. Money seems to be their driving force. They deny the “commoners” the quality of education and medicine they enjoy.
Except that many great things come from those in power as well, and many important social and educational movements require support from those at the top. Simply being against those in power denies the hard work of folks who manage to do good at that level.
I’m not trying to provide blanket support for all those in powerful positions in education or government, but are you denying that folks in powerful positions can also affect change? I’d also like us talk specifically about what folks have done relevant to education. I’m not against highlighting specific problems folks may have with Jindal regarding education, but simply being in a position of power is not one of them. Moreover, highlighting his problems with proposals related to elderly in nursing homes has absolutely no bearing on his educational policies, and makes arguments against Jindal look weaker as it looks like you’re reaching for unrelated topics or have a personal bias.
I am not saying that all people who are in power do bad things, but there are many out there who do not serve the people. They serve their own interests or those of corporations. The privatizing of public schools in the name of reform is a sham and a disservice to children, much as the cuts in funding for hospitals is a disservice to those who need it the most.
I agree with you that there are some (if not many) who are in positions of power that take advantage of situations for their own personal gain, or who propose ideas that they believe are helpful, but are not based on evidence.
I didn’t realize that my readers could set limits on what I am allowed to discuss. This is news to me.
Bobby Jindal’s cluelessness about the needs of the elderly and sick do relate to his cluelessness about the needs of children.
It also reflects his desire to eviscerate the public sector.
I think your readers come here to read about and discuss educational issues. While there may be a fine difference, I do think there is a difference between “setting limits on you” and questioning the relevance of a topic to the core topic area of this blog (education). The purpose of me point this out, though, isn’t to tell you how to run your blog, but to question the intent of the post. In the current public discourse of the reform movement, I’ve seen irrelevant material used to support positions on either side, and I believe that calling out material as irrelevant is a core part of the discussion. If you were to post about how horrendous it was that reformers started wearing yellow ties, I would question that argument because I wouldn’t see that as relevant to the core issue at hand, but a distraction used to rile folks up who hate the color yellow (yes, I’m being a bit extreme).
I can see how you’ve found relevance of this topic by looking at underlying motivations deeper than educational issues, though. I’m gathering that you see his underlying motivation of privatization as hurtful to education, and you are highlighting that motivation in your post. Thanks for clarifying.
Jindal’s other cuts absolutely relate to education. Do you know that he is also cutting school counselors and librarians?
The cuts to the elderly and sick also impact special education. because he is cutting physical, occupational, and speech therapy for adults on Medicaid who are not locked up in nursing homes. That will impact a lot of our special education students aged 18-22. Then there is the issue of his total reduction in state medical aid for the poor and refusal to participate in Obamacare, particularly in setting up insurance exchanges, which will make it more expensive for families to get health insurance. He is refusing to increase the numbers of people who qualify for Medicaid. And who does that impact? Children, of course.
And don’t forget the crisis in Baton Rouge where women who lack a car have to walk to Woman’s Hospital from the last bus stop for ob/gyn and pregnancy services because the wealthy Republican neighborhoods in Southeast Baton Rouge oppose public transportation. Now picture a mother with 2-3 children in tow walking down a 4-6 lane divided highway, the main thoroughfare through the capital city. He recently closed the LSU ob/gyn clinic in North Baton Rouge ( The poorest part)with his budget cuts and the public hospital is going down in April.
The point is EVERTHING our dictator does, including trying to lock grandma up in a nursing home instead of letting her spend her last days with her loving grandchildren, affects children and affects education. Good memories of grandma have a profound effect on the kids. (By the way, he backed off of sending people who needed hospice care to nursing homes after a demonstration at the Capitol, at least until June, which will be after he beats the Legislature into some more cuts.)
Piyush (Bobby) Jindal is nothing but a tyrant and a dictator. He cares nothing about anyone who is not going to vote for him and that means children. I wonder if he would sell his own children if it would assure him the presidency. All Americans need to be aware of this one because you can guarantee that if he is not stopped he is going to be a GOP candidate. He has been putting his ducks in a row for a couple of years and that included going to Iowa to campaign against same sex marriage and support Romney during the presidential campaign—-accompanied by the Louisiana State Police bodyguards, of course. He won’t reveal how these campaign trips were paid for.
This is the behavior of a sociopath in power.
In Florida, Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott cut $1.6 million from mental health services and gave $1.6 million via a tax incentive to a gun manufacturer – after the massacre of innocents at Sandy Hook.
Oh yes, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana also cut a mental health program primarily for children 6 and under just about 2 weeks ago. Now it will be more difficult to prevent little kids from becoming severely disabled with mental illness at an age when it is fairly easy to treat. The state people are trying to shift funds around, but that will take from other programs. Sandy Hook II in the making.
Gov McDonald (R-VA), supporter of the transvaginal ultrasounds, has proposed cutting mental health services to save a few million and spend $15 million on a merit pay program for teachers (despite that Fairfax County was the setting for the failure of merit pay on a grand scale back in the late 1980s early 1990s).
I would wager $25 that most teachers would rather see money for mental health services instead of funding social quackery.
It won’t get saved either if those kids who are not treated end up in self contained classes for the emotional/behavioral disordered.
In the excellent book “Nurture shock”, there are some very revealing facts about teenagers. Such as the delay of 90 minutes in melatonin release at night (hence the desire to stay up later) but the lie in to still get full sleep is vital. Some US schools have delayed school start in respect if this to fantastic benefit in pupil results. Damaged sleep affects concentration and retention in class, and the permanent laying down of memories at night. I would suggest that the effect of sleep improvement would be far greater in the long term than the effect of a shiny new school.
The book covers much more than this – I will write notes on my web site in due course.
Oh, one more Bobby Jindal thing. He fires any Department Head or even legislative committee member who disagrees with him. Offend Bobby and lose your job! He has done this a number of times in recent months. The thing with the hospice care for the elderly came after he tried to put the local Councils on Aging under Health and Hospitals. The Councils tend to attract their own money. The head of the State Council got fired for objecting. Then came the hospice care thing.
They have convinced themselves that by eliminating all of these services, they will force the largely dependent, lazy citizens to “pull up their boot straps” and to start taking care of themselves. It doesn’t matter if there are too few jobs (let alone jobs that pay a living wage or provide any kind of health or retirement benefits).