How the Government Really Works: A Train Wreck V
October 19, 2010 - by
So here’s what has happened: Secretary Lanier Cansler promised legislators he could cut the Medicaid Home Care $50 million (because, he said, the 45% of the patients were cheats) – if they’d let him give out a no bid contract to one of his former clients.
But it turned out only 3% of the patients were cheats – not 45%.
Cansler got around that problem by taking away patients’ right to appeal – so he could rule a patient wasn’t sick and didn’t need care and there wasn’t anything the patient could do about it.
Next his former client CCME Corporation (which Cansler gave a $25 million no bid contract) starting cutting patients’ care but it proved to be so inept it turned home care into a massive train wreck. Patients whose doctors said they needed care – for example, after a hospital stay – couldn’t get it because CCME couldn’t find time to examine them. New patients who needed care didn’t get it. And sick patients care got cut which left them one choice: The only way to get care was to go into a Rest Home.
So, so far, the only winner is the Rest Home Lobby (which gains patients), which means the taxpayers lose (because they’re going to pay three times more to care for the patients in Rest Homes), and all that happened because Secretary Cansler misled legislators by telling them, I can cut home care $50 million – if you let me give a $25 million no bid contract to one of my former clients.
So now we have a pair of multi-million dollar health care train wrecks in North Carolina: The mental health care train wreck and the Home Care train wreck.
But at least, Cansler can say to legislators, See. Look. It worked just like I said it would. I’m cutting in-home care 45% – which is an example of how government really works.
How the Government Really Works: A Train Wreck V
October 19, 2010/
So here’s what has happened: Secretary Lanier Cansler promised legislators he could cut the Medicaid Home Care $50 million (because, he said, the 45% of the patients were cheats) – if they’d let him give out a no bid contract to one of his former clients.
But it turned out only 3% of the patients were cheats – not 45%.
Cansler got around that problem by taking away patients’ right to appeal – so he could rule a patient wasn’t sick and didn’t need care and there wasn’t anything the patient could do about it.
Next his former client CCME Corporation (which Cansler gave a $25 million no bid contract) starting cutting patients’ care but it proved to be so inept it turned home care into a massive train wreck. Patients whose doctors said they needed care – for example, after a hospital stay – couldn’t get it because CCME couldn’t find time to examine them. New patients who needed care didn’t get it. And sick patients care got cut which left them one choice: The only way to get care was to go into a Rest Home.
So, so far, the only winner is the Rest Home Lobby (which gains patients), which means the taxpayers lose (because they’re going to pay three times more to care for the patients in Rest Homes), and all that happened because Secretary Cansler misled legislators by telling them, I can cut home care $50 million – if you let me give a $25 million no bid contract to one of my former clients.
So now we have a pair of multi-million dollar health care train wrecks in North Carolina: The mental health care train wreck and the Home Care train wreck.
But at least, Cansler can say to legislators, See. Look. It worked just like I said it would. I’m cutting in-home care 45% – which is an example of how government really works.