New LSU Medical Center to be leased to private enterprise?
David Blake Reporting
The huge new LSU Medical Center being built in New Orleans, may end up being leased out to a number of private companies. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars it's raising a slew of questions in the state capitol. There are reportedly closed-door negotiations going on for businesses to lease space in the facility that could help the state with a $380 million dollar health care budget shortfall. State Treasurer John Kennedy has questions.
''How much are we going to get for the lease, are we going to bid it out or are we just going to pick somebody, and who did the picking,'' Kennedy asks.
While Kennedy said there is nothing wrong with the concept, but he wants to see a decent profit, mentioning ten percent as a healthy margin.
Meanwhile State Representative Cameron Henry said ''It's unfortunate, but it looks like we spent 1.2 billion dollars to build a stack hospital and now we're going to lease out rooms, floors and buildings.''