State agencies scramble for funds
by Michelle Millhollon - Advocate (excerpt)

State agencies are scrambling to figure out how to absorb a $30 million state employee health insurance premium increase.

State employees will shoulder a fourth of a 5.6 percent rate increase that the Office of Group Benefits’ board unanimously deemed unnecessary and that one legislator said is being parlayed into the Jindal administration’s possible privatization bid.

An administration official said that to go two years without a rate increase would be unusual.