Forced by federal cuts that will result in an $800 million hole in Louisiana’s public health care budget, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration has been in emergency mode, trimming staff and services at the state’s 10 public hospitals to compensate.

The critical issue is how to provide adequate care and treatment to the nearly 1 million state residents who depend on the state’s charity hospital system with substantially less money.

Secondary to that mission, but nearly as vital, is how to maintain the state’s physician training program.

This under-the-gun reform of the health care system has already garnered the attention of the national organization that accredits training programs for medical students.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has asked LSU officials about how the changes in the public hospital system that the university oversees will affect medical students’ training.

LSU Executive Vice President Frank Opelka said that ACGME accreditation is vital for medical students when they are applying for specialty training. He told the LSU Board of Supervisors it’s important that LSU’s medical training program avoid being placed on probation.

ACGME Executive Director for Institutional Review Patricia Surdyk reminded LSU officials in an email earlier this month that any redesign must pass the agency’s inspection and suggested that LSU had yet to provide any information. …

The health, vibrancy and credibility of LSU’s medical training program isn’t something to monkey around with in this reform of the state’s public hospital system.

It deserves the utmost care. And the Jindal administration and LSU officials should be mindful of the doctor’s creed to do no harm when it comes to LSU’s training of medical students.

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Oct. 25

The Courier, Houma, La., on U.S. oil production:

The oil production of the United States is on a sharp upward climb, and that should please anyone who is rooting for American energy independence.

That won’t happen in the next year or two, but the experts predict that within the next decade, the nation’s oil imports could decrease by half.

Right now, the U.S. is producing about 10.9 million barrels of crude and other hydrocarbons — representing a 7 percent increase from last year until this year.

That is strong growth that even the experts didn’t foresee.

“Five years ago, if I or anyone had predicted today’s production growth, people would have thought we were crazy,” said Jim Burkhard, head of oil markets research at IHS CERA, an energy consulting firm.

The recent growth in America’s oil production has placed the U.S. in the running for worldwide leader, a distinction that would have us pass Saudi Arabia and Russia, which have led the world for a decade.

The current upward trend is likely to continue.

The U.S. government predicts that the figure for next year will be 11.4 million barrels a day, just less than Saudi Arabia’s 11.6 million barrels.

The numbers for production are strong and increasing. But they aren’t anywhere close to what America uses just yet. That sizeable figure is about 18.7 million barrels a day.

But with the strong growth we have seen and many expect to continue, the gap between what we use and what we produce will steadily decrease.

That is good news for a nation that depends for much of its energy imports on nations that despise us and on regions of the world that are politically unstable.

The increase in domestic production is not enough to make a dent in the world market, which is the largest determining factor behind retail gas prices.

But if the trends continue, America could become less dependent on foreign oil. That decreased dependency should eventually make U.S. gas prices more stable.

The most important gain from these trends, though, is that the U.S. will have less at stake in volatile world conditions such as instability and conflict in the Middle East.

America will not be independent of the world energy market anytime soon. But it is good to see an increased domestic production fueling a healthy trend away from foreign oil and toward the oil that’s produced right here in the Gulf of Mexico and across the U.S.

Online:

http://www.houmatoday.com

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Oct. 29

The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La., on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s future is still at home:

While we’re not saying that political analyst Elliott Stonecipher is wrong about Gov. Bobby Jindal’s immediate future in politics, we’d also say that the best information on the governor’s future plans is what the governor himself says.

Stonecipher speculated at the Press Club of Baton Rouge that the governor would accept a Cabinet post if Republican Mitt Romney is elected next month.

The governor said he’s not going to do that. “I consider being the governor of Louisiana to be more important and the best job there is,” according to his statement.

Case closed? Not entirely.

Stonecipher reflects conventional wisdom at the State Capitol that the governor puts national advancement at the top of the priority list. And while we agree that Jindal’s policies have been skewed to national audiences to the detriment of Louisiana in a number of cases over the last few years, there is reason to take Jindal at his word on the current political outlook.

Why? First of all, it’s all dependent on whether Romney is elected.

Second, does a Cabinet position give Jindal scope to “run for president” the way Stonecipher expects? …

If Romney is not elected, the GOP will be entering a serious round of recriminations and finger-pointing, not least among the most conservative activists who are likely to assert that Romney lost because he is not conservative enough. Those conservative activists are those Jindal has courted with his sometimes inexplicably bad state decisions that appeal to national constituencies — creationism in schools and opposition to renewal of existing tobacco taxes, among other bad calls.

As a governor, Jindal is more the master of his own political destiny. Does he eschew national politics? No, he can continue his active political traveling on behalf of the Republican Governors Association; Jindal is in office here until January 2016.

As Romney and others have demonstrated, running for president does not necessarily require holding down a fulltime job. If anything, a fulltime job might get in the way of the immense task.

So Stonecipher may not be wrong, as the governor might well change his mind about the best job anyone could want. But there are sound reasons of political interest for the governor to stay put, for now.

Online:

http://www.theadvocate.com