For the past few months, I’ve been telling my Straight Talk audience about the people at Blue Cross who are doing hard work to make big improvements to the health insurance landscape and health in Louisiana.
Today, I want to introduce you to the head honcho here at Blue Cross, Dr. I. Steven Udvarhelyi. He’s our President and CEO and he’s best known around here as Dr. Steve. Read more
You ever hear the expression “You just can’t make this stuff up?” It implies that reality is so bizarre, so unexpected, that it HAS to be unscripted and random.
If you’ve followed the fate of the Affordable Care Act through the courts over the past decade, you would become a believer of “you just can’t make this stuff up.” Read more
Legislation, both state and federal, has a unique way of imposing rather artificial life transitions on us. When I turned 15 years old in the mid-70s, I was immediately eligible (after taking a VERY simple test and paying $5) to drive a car, alone, anywhere I wanted to go. No auto insurance was required, by the way. At my 18th birthday, I was legally able to join the military, vote, and buy and drink alcohol. I was dubbed by society at that point a fully featured “adult.” In the 70s.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is unconstitutional.
It’s a big ruling, the second step in a long process to determine the future of the law. But the Fifth Circuit stopped short of what the people who brought the lawsuit wanted. In fact, the judges on the Fifth Circuit, right here in Louisiana, sent the lawsuit back to the district judge in Texas to “conduct a more searching inquiry” into which parts of the law could survive without the mandate. Read more
One of the most precious people in my life growing up was my paternal grandmother. Her name was Catherine, and her sisters and brothers called her Kitty.
Kitty was born in 1911, one of nine children, and lived her early life on a sugarcane farm near Donaldsonville, Louisiana. She married her next-door neighbor in 1934. My father, her only child, was born in 1938. Her husband, Carroll II, worked during the Great Depression anywhere he could, including building out the levees after the 1927 flood on the Mississippi River, sweeping the floors at the railroad station, and pumping gas. Read more
Today, I want to introduce you to someone who is a key piece of the transformation Blue Cross is undergoing. John Brown is our Chief Human Resources Officer. He is instrumental to achieving our mission – to improve the health and lives of Louisianians. Those aren’t just words that sound good; according to John, achieving that mission requires us to focus on what can we deliver to our employees that will allow them to meet the needs of our customers and the goals we’ve set for our company. Read more
