You could call it the unofficial launch of Sen. Mary Landrieu’s re-election campaign.

The Louisiana senator came to a meeting of the Independent Women’s Organization in eastern New Orleans on Saturday and delivered a stark warning to the state’s Democrats, telling a ballroom packed with local political players that it’s either her or another vote for the tea party in the Senate.

And as always for Landrieu, who will be asking voters for a fourth term next fall, it will be a close-fought thing, another expensive struggle to hold one of the last Democratic Senate seats in the South as Republicans fight for a majority in the chamber.

“When you look at that map and they start putting down millions and millions of dollars where they’re going to go after, I’m targeted every time,” Landrieu said. “I’ve had probably $60 million to $75 million spent against me, telling people all sorts of horrible things.”

But, Landrieu said, “I do it joyfully,” pointing out that if not for her, the Senate seat could have gone to David Duke, the notorious former Ku Klux Klan leader who ran in 1990, or Woody Jenkins, a state representative she beat in 1996 who “was in the tea party before there was a tea party.”

Landrieu’s remarks, perhaps her most combative this election cycle, come at a busy time in the Senate, with a long debate set to begin over immigration reform and a fight to block steep increases in flood insurance premiums, a battle that could affect thousands of Louisiana residents.

In the meantime, Landrieu also has family headaches to cope with after her 21-year-old son, Frank Conner Snellings, was arrested for allegedly driving drunk in the French Quarter. Landrieu mentioned the arrest briefly on Saturday, saying she was “terribly disappointed” with him and that he will be “fully held accountable by the law.”

But Landrieu made it clear that she already is focused intently on keeping her seat, facing a challenge from Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, and perhaps others. She mentioned frequent trips outside of Washington to raise money, reminded her audience of the paper-thin margins of victory that have sustained her thus far and even collected a few checks from supporters before leaving the stage.

State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, chairwoman of the Louisiana Democratic Party, introduced Landrieu with a sharply worded battle cry, framing her re-election to the Senate as the state party’s top priority.

“The most important thing that we have to do in the not-too-distant future to move Louisiana and all of our communities forward is to re-elect Senator Mary Landrieu in 2014,” Peterson said.

Imagine, she said, leaving U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Republican, as Louisiana’s senior member of the Senate, a prospect that drew audible groans from the largely Democratic audience.

“OK, so that scares you,” Peterson said. “And it should.”

She pointed out that Democrats will be defending 21 Senate seats next year as they try to maintain a majority and will be losing a slew of incumbents to retirement.

“It’s going to be a dogfight to keep control of the U.S. Senate,” she said.

Landrieu’s speech carried the same note of warning. She argued that none of her Republican challengers would have been able to harness the millions of dollars that have poured into Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina and pointed out that President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul cleared the filibuster threshold in the Senate by only a single vote.

“I am so glad that I am there to vote on these bills that have just a magnitude of impact,” she said.

A great father can be so many things: a teacher, a role model, an adviser, a mentor, a family hero, a shoulder to lean on, and a steady presence through ups and downs.

I’m so blessed to have a strong role model in my dad, Mr. Kenneth M. Carter! Thanks for everything, KMC!

On this Father’s Day, we give thanks for the commitment great fathers make to their families every day.

But, as we celebrate fathers, we must contend with troubling statistics regarding men in our community. It’s just a reminder that everyone in our community is not as fortunate to have a father or strong male role model in their life.  According to a recently-released Loyola University study, less than half of African-American men in New Orleans were employed in 2011. This is an extremely alarming number, one which we must confront directly. We must work together, as a community to devise solutions to this pressing problem that impacts families daily!

A report from the New Orleans Fatherhood Consortium gives further detail on the importance of fathers to children and families in our community:

Luckily, there are groups out there making a difference. One such group is the “Silverback Society,” a mentoring group focused on passing down positive values and respect from one generation of men to the next. You can learn more here. There are many other local organizations working in this regard and we should all offer them our human and financial support.

We must focus our efforts to uplift men in our communities so we all may see better days ahead, for the sake of families and fathers alike.

The budget process is never perfect. The process at its core is a compromise between competing interests.

However, this year is different. By constraining our options, and ignoring some hard truths, this budget is more broken than ever.

First, the budget relies heavily on the privatizations of the LSU Charity Hospitals. I wrote earlier today that these agreements are bad deals for Louisiana. From the appalling lack of detail in the agreements, to the huge unexpected costs, to the lack of civil service approval, to the fundamental questions about the provisions of care; these deals in their current form are wrong for the people of Louisiana. This year’s budget counts on the completion of these deals, and I believe that that is irresponsible.

Second, due to the Governor’s troubles with the State constitution and the law, the budget was built with millions of dollars of funding for his voucher program. Even worse, it includes a built-in 5% increase for private vouchers while failing to provide such an increase in funding for our public school students. Funding this ineffective folly through the state budget is unconscionable while the Governor continues to preside over a growing 66% cut to Higher Education funding over past 5 years of his administration.

Lastly, the budget continues a dangerous and irresponsible shell game revolving around one-time money and fiscal gimmicks. This year’s budget bets on a “tax amnesty” program and calls this potential funding “reoccurring money,” circumventing the fiscal controls imposed by the House. Analysts have been clear that the potential funding gained by these types of programs is often unrealized.

Simultaneously, the budget also raids numerous statutorily-dedicated funds, using millions of one-time money to keep the state afloat. These funds were largely dedicated by the taxpayers for specific purposes, not for use in budget crunches to make up for the lack of State General Funds. This is a fiscally irresponsible, and unsustainable, method to fund state government.

Still, I praise my colleagues for working within the unfair budgetary guidelines dictated by the Governor’s administration. While they’ve done their best to rearrange the furniture, the house is still burning down.

Without serious fiscal reform, the devastating mid-year cuts, emergency measures, addiction to borrowed money, and forced privatization will continue to plague our state.

We must do better for the people of Louisiana. They deserve a stable, sustainable and honest budget that presents a positive vision for growth in our state.

I’m prepared to continue working constructively towards that goal. It will take cooperation and a dedicated effort to confront powerful fiscal truths. I know it can be done, and I stand ready to work any of those who seek a better budget in our future.

Only 6 months ago, Governor Jindal announced that the Charity Hospital System, run by LSU Health, would be privatized.

Since that time, we’ve continuously petitioned the administration for details on the deals they secretly negotiated with private health care providers. The questions these choices raise are critically important to the future of health care delivery in Louisiana.

What we have learned just yesterday, however, is disturbing. The Louisiana Civil Service Commission rejected the administration’s plans to lay off over 3000 employees of the LSU system by the end of this month by a vote of 4-3. Over 1,600 of these employees currently work in New Orleans at LSU Interim Hospital. With no money available to pay these state employees after June, this leaves the state with a staggering financial liability that must be addressed immediately. And as of now, there have been no plans put forward by the Administration to confront this scenario.

How the Commission Voted:

• Commissioners Kenneth Polite, D. Scott Hughes, Curtis “Pete” Fremin and Sidney Tobias Jr. voted against approving the deals.

• Commissioners Duplantier, John McLure, of Alexandria, and G. Lee Griffin, of Baton Rouge, voted to approve the deals.

Frustratingly, after 6 months, we still don’t have answers to basic questions on health care accessibility, annual costs to the state, terms of the agreements, and the status of the provision of vital outpatient services to our community.

I asked the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (the Federal manager of Medicaid and Medicare money, essential for running these hospitals) to analyze the current agreements to the best of their ability. The answers to my inquiries were disturbing at best. You can find an important analysis of those answers here.

Since that time, we’ve also learned that the costs of laying off these employees (even if Civil Service had approved) was over $42 million more expensive than previously revealed.

Additionally, reports surfaced that the major agreements between the State and the private hospital providers have dozens of blank pages within the agreements, details that have yet to be ironed out with only two weeks before the agreements are to be signed. This is simply unacceptable.

In an attempt to reign in this secretive process, the Louisiana Senate approved a resolution that directed the Administration to turn over information to the Legislature and also to require Legislative approval of the Hospital deals. The administration has ignored this directive.

It’s clear: These deals are bad for Louisiana and her taxpayers. Early reports indicate that the privatizations will be more expensive, with less certainty about the provision of services, and without strong protections for the taxpayers against future default.

We must do better for Health Care in Louisiana.

It doesn’t present a vision for a better Louisiana or make smart investments to increase prosperity. Instead, it’s a trap of our own design. We have painted ourselves into a corner, and now we’re desperately struggling to get out.

This budget is, in the end, an irresponsible instrument. That’s why I voted against this it, the first time I’ve voted against a budget in the 13+ years I’ve spent in the Legislature. 

Instead of setting the state on firm, long-term financial footing, we’re repeatedly robbing Peter to pay Paul. We’re playing a game, presenting the people of Louisiana a fiction. By balancing our budget with one-time funds, with raids on special accounts, with accounting tricks and by using certain, but not all, Federal dollars, we’re proving that it is only a budget of default and of last resort.

It doesn’t project stability for our state finances, but duct-tapes the holes in our ship to make it sea-worthy for just enough time to get the bill through the chambers. We’re fighting rear-guard actions to prevent even more devastating cuts to our most vital institutions of higher education and health care. We are hemming ourselves in so that we can only have bad and worse options.

But it doesn’t have to be this way: We don’t have to be irresponsible, raiding funds, moving money around on paper. We don’t have to leave so many opportunities on the table to help Louisianians, including critical grants, infrastructure development, or, yes, medicaid expansion. Louisiana needs a stable, fiscally-responsible state budget. I hope the Legislature realizes this. realizes this. We’ll keep fighting to ensure that they do.

Read more on the budget that passed the Senate, and what the next steps are, here.

This week, the Senate finished work on a capital budget for the next financial year. I’m happy to announce that District 5 could see over $75m in newly approved capital projects. Below, I’ve listed some of the initiatives that have been approved for funding in our District:

• $1,000,000 for A New Home for the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra
• $11,520,000 for the National World War 2 Museum‘s Expansion, Design, 12 Planning, Acquisition, and Construction
• $475,000 toward Building Mercy Endeavors’ Irish Channel St. Andrew Street Elderly Resource Center
• $300,000 for Improvements to Girod Street for theDowntown Development District of New Orleans
• $200,000 toward Building the Broadmoor Improvement Association‘s Community Art and Wellness Center
• $1,500,000 for the Planning and Construction of theDryades YMCA Technical Training Center
• $800,000 for a South Rampart Street Historic Development Project for the New Orleans Music Hall of Fame
• $625,000 toward a Renovation and Expansion Project for Central City’s Cafe Reconcile New Orleans, Inc.
• $1,265,000 toward the Ogden Museum/Taylor Library Renovation for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art
• $4,280,000 for a Kingsley House Acquisition, Renovations, New Construction and Major Repairs to the Kingsley House
• $75,000 for The Jazz & Heritage Center Renovation and Addition, 1225 North Rampart for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation
• $3,000,000 for the WYES Katrina Rebuilding/Equipment Project for WYES TV New Orleans
• $3,700,000 for Louisiana Children’s Museum Early Learning Village for the Louisiana Children’s Museum
• $20,000,000 toward the Hall A Renovation, Planning and Construction for the New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority
• $400,000 for the construction of the Rosenwald Community Center
• $10,095,000 toward building the Human Development Center at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans

You can learn more about the projects in the Capital Construction budget as passed by the Senate, here.

“I think we should judge a policy by its content, not the person proposing it. To be clear, I didn’t call any person “racist.” Rather, I was simply relaying the truth about conversations I’ve had with my colleagues and the factors they considered on the expansion of Medicaid. While others are using this as an opportunity to take my comments out of context in order to distract from the true issue, I think it’s critical that we focus on the substance of the policy because it’s the right thing to do for Louisiana. Expanding health care access is a vital issue for the people of Louisiana, no matter what it’s called or who offers it. The Republican Party and even our very own Governor have chosen to twist my words and I would politely suggest that they review the attached transcript that reveal what I actually said.”

[transcript below]

Transcript from 5/28/13 HB 533 by Kleckley – Senate Floor

@2:13 SENATOR PETERSON:

This isn’t about the administration and it should not be about the administration of the state nor federal level when it comes to Obamacare but in fact it is and why is that. I have talked to so many members in the House and Senate and you know what it comes down to? Are you ready for this? It is not ab how many federal dollars we can receive. You ready? You want to know what it’s about? It’s about race. Now nobody wants to talk about that. It’s about the race of this African American President because this same thing has been offered by who? By former Speaker Newt Gingrich in the past. Yeah he had a similar bill to what President Obama has offered. Similar legislation was offered! It comes down to the race of the Pres. Of The US which causes people to disconnect and step away from the substance of the bill. So I agree with Senator Buffington, it shouldn’t be about the title. It should not be about the title. It should be about the subject matter and others have shared that with me personally. “You know the reason I can’t support this Senator Peterson is not because of you, but it is because I cannot go back to my district and face my constituents and tell them that I embraced, not Medicaid expansion, not 100% of funds going to help the uninsured of Louisiana, I cannot say I supported Obamacare.” So I guess we can’t support JindalCares either. I think that’s what it all comes down to if we are honest with ourselves. But we’ll continue the madness here in this state. We will leave here on June 6^th, the Hospital Association you will get what you want because this bill is about to pass but what will you do after that when these Private-public partnerships don’t work? What will you do? Will you come back to the legislature begging us to help you expand Medicaid?  Will you be on the front line with stickers then asking us to step up? Well you can do that now. There’s time, time will tell.

The California Test Case

California state government is working in concert with dedicated advocates to fully implement the ACA, and this huge state is an important case. Through cooperation and hard work, implementation is producing even lower health care premiums than anticipated in the State’s health care exchange. From theWashington Post:

Health insurers will charge 25-year-olds between $142 and $190 per month for a bare-bones health plan in Los Angeles. A 40-year-old in San Francisco who wants a top-of-the-line plan would receive a bill between $451 and $525. Downgrade to a less robust option, and premiums fall as low as $221.

These premium rates, released Thursday, help answer one of the biggest questions about Obamacare: How much health insurance will cost. 

They do so in California, the state with 7.1 million uninsured residents, more than any other place in the country. Multiple projections expected premiums to be relatively high. The Congressional Budget Office predicted back in November 2009 that a medium-cost plan on the health exchange – known as a “silver plan” – would have an annual premium of  $5,200. A separate report from actuarial firm Milliman projected that, in California, the average silver plan would have a $450 monthly premium. Now we have California’s rates, and they appear to be significantly less expensive than what forecasters expected. [read more]

This is great news for Californians. Through their hard work, the promise of health care reform is coming true.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true in Louisiana.Through obstinate policy-making and constant political cynacism, the Jindal Administration is hobbling the hope of health care reform.

The Jindal Administration even continues to reject the most generous provision of the Affordable Care Act, the ability for states to expand Medicaid. In Louisiana, this would mean over 400,000 Louisianians would get access to health care, produce more than 15,000 health-sector jobs, and stabilize our hospitals health care infrastructure with the injection of over $15 billion over 10 years. Oh yes, and it would rescue our State Budget.

Despite those strong arguments and overwhelming public support, the Governor and his defenders of the broken status quo simply won’t get to “yes.”

Bobby Jindal and the Louisiana party of “no” don’t get it. 

Iowa Expands Medicaid

Iowa gets it. Their Republican Governor and Democratic Legislature just agreed to expand Medicaid, giving more than 150,000 Iowans the health care that so many working Louisianians desperately need:

Iowa will accept federal funding to expand health care to low-income residents under a compromise reached between statehouse Democrats and Republican Gov. Terry Branstad,Senate President Pam Jochum says.

The legislation will be called the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan. Jochum said the state will accept federal funding from Medicaid expansion to cover approximately 150,000 new enrollees.

“It was a big breakthrough,” Jochum told the TH today. “A lot of people thought we’d never reach agreement, and we did.” [read more]

AZ Gov Makes Expansion Top Priority

Iowa isn’t alone. Arizona’s GOP Governor is threatening to veto all legislation that hits her desk until the Legislature approves Medicaid Expansion:

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) has a message for her party: expand Medicaid — or else. The combative GOP governor is sticking by a threat she made to veto all legislation until lawmakers resolve the 2014 state budget and pass Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

On Thursday, Brewer proved that wasn’t just talk, vetoing five bills sent to her desk in quick succession. “I warned that I would not sign additional measures into law until we see resolution of the two most pressing issues facing us: adoption of a fiscal 2014 state budget and plan for Medicaid,” wrote Brewer in her veto message. “It is disappointing I must demonstrate the moratorium was not an idle threat.”

There is still hope for Louisiana. Let the Governor and your Representatives hear from you. Tell them to #JustSayYes to health care for Louisiana.