Having overhauled La. agency, Bobby Jindal '92 turns to Medicare reform, speaks at Brown Feb. 28
It would seem there were many more qualified applicants than Bobby Jindal to head Louisiana's largest state agency. After all, his credentials were bare: only 24, with a Brown degree in public policy and biology and a few well-written papers on health care under his belt.
But Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster saw something in Jindal, and hired him as secretary of the state's Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH), assigning him the daunting task of overhauling a nearly bankrupt agency with 12,000 employees and hundreds of facilities.
In just two years, and to the surprise of those who first doubted his qualifications, Jindal turned the department's $400-million Medicaid deficit into a program with surpluses of more than $200 million. He slashed the budget, collected overpayments made to hospitals and implemented cost-saving measures while maintaining services.
However, while some people might rest on their laurels, Jindal thinks his job is done and it is time to move on. "I feel confident we've turned things around," said Jindal.
So on Feb. 28, when Jindal returns to Brown for the first time since he graduated, he will talk about his new charge as director of a congressional committee to reform Medicare. Jindal will talk about both the challenges facing state Medicaid programs and charity hospitals, using Louisiana as a case study, and the similar issues facing Medicare on the national level during the public lecture at 7 p.m. in Salomon Center.
He will also discuss his experience as an Asian American in politics at 4:30 p.m. at the same location. Jindal's visit is sponsored by the Asian American Students Association, the South Asian Students Association, Department of Public Policy and the School of Medicine.
Born Piyush Jindal 26 years ago to parents who emigrated from India, he was raised in Baton Rouge and adopted the name Bobby from the youngest boy on the "Brady Bunch" television show.
Jindal graduated from Brown in December 1991, then combined his academic interests in both public policy and biology as a Rhodes Scholar and authored several articles on health care, an experience that helped direct his career. "It opened up a lot of opportunities and interests," he said.
Instead of pursing advanced degrees, Jindal decided to go after those opportunities. He turned down Harvard and Yale law and medical schools in order to return to Louisiana in January 1996 to head the DHH.
"It was an opportunity to really help my home state, an incredible opportunity to make a positive impact," said Jindal. The decision also helped him meet a challenge. "Unless we try to do things just beyond our reach we will never realize what we can do," he said.
When he accepted the position, Jindal stated that part of his mission would be "to guarantee top quality health care to the one million-plus Louisiana citizens who currently receive state assistance without burdening the other three million-plus taxpayers who pay the bills."
That statement sums up everything his professors could have hoped to teach him in the public policy program, said Thomas J. Anton, public policy professor and director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions.
"We've got a lot of bright kids here but you don't always get the combination of brightness and work ethic and commitment to public good," said Anton, who reviewed Jindal's 300-page senior thesis on factors that have the greatest impact on medical costs. "He was ... committed to doing the right thing."
Now Jindal must make the transition from overhauling a state program with about one million recipients to tackling the future of a national program that serves 38 million people. To do so, he stepped down from the Louisiana post earlier this month.
As director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, he will lead the 17-member panel in examining the financial and clinical problems facing that program. Among his most important duties will be to garner bipartisan support for whatever recommendations the commission makes by the March 1999 deadline, said Jindal.
Because the appointment as commission director is only a one-year post, Jindal will be looking for a new job when it expires. But, he added, "I've stopped trying to plan where I'm going to be five years from now. When I was at Brown I had a much longer-term perspective. I stopped doing that - I just can't predict where my next opportunity or job will be."