It drives me up a wall to have people behave as though Bobby Jindal is the great brown hope of the GOP. (Although I’m not a Republican, I’m conservative, and that’s the closest thing I have to a political party. Which, I’m sorry to say, isn’t that close… but I digress.) Is he some wunderkind? Well, he was a darned good Representative in Congress; I voted for him every time and I was very satisfied with his performance. As governor, he’s done a better job than we’re used to. But that’s setting the bar pretty low. Kathleen Blanco ought not to have been in charge of anything larger than a second grade classroom, and Edwin Edwards is in jail. We had some bozo in between whose main goal in life seemed to be making sure he wasn’t required to wear a motorcycle helmet. (Yes, okay, Foster did more than that. But what?) So now we find out that Governor Jindal’s big medical deal may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Much like his (nonexistent) state hiring freeze, and his poor management of the legislative pay raise fiasco, and quite a few other things. He is very decidedly a mixed bag, Republicans, so caveat emptor:
Florida Medicaid program criticized; Jindal plan built on similar principles – The Medicaid pilot program Alan Levine helped push through the Florida Legislature in late 2005 was certainly ambitious: a bold bet that commercial managed-care companies, given enough flexibility, could run that state’s health care program for the poor at a lower cost and produce better outcomes than state government.
Three years later, Levine has moved on to become secretary of the Health and Hospitals Department in Louisiana, where he has designed a Medicaid pilot program that’s built on many of the same principles. But while Louisiana waits to learn whether its plan will pass muster with federal authorities, the Florida program remains a work in progress that, according to some critics, has failed to live up to its promises.
Well I know you’ve certainly turned me off from him. I’m not real big on women leaders, but Palin may be my girl again.
Eh – why choose? It’s not my intention to turn people off of Jindal; I intend to vote for him again. I just think that describing him as the “future of the Republican party” is pretty over the top. Let him prove himself. If we accept the image and don’t demand the substance, we’re no better than the Dems. I want Jindal to step up and do what he’s promised; his performance so far – while overall good – doesn’t measure up. So he’s going to need to learn to either get it done more effectively or tone down his rhetoric or something. I also really like Palin, though I have qualms about her too, in some respects.