5/11/2006
Word spread quickly on Wednesday that a Texas Health and Human Services Commission directive was pulling most of the work that Accenture-run call centers were supposed to do to replace 2,900 state workers and shutter about one-third of the agency's field offices.
"The (state's) benefits offices will complete and process Food Stamps, Adult Medicaid, Children's Medicaid and Medicaid Eligibility for Elderly and People with Disabilities," it orders. "All work will be completed end to end by state staff." (Emphasis mine.) As I was wading through the 13-page memo, sent by a state worker who like most of his or her colleagues must remain unnamed after being warned against talking to reporters, another e-mail arrived.
"Don't you love it when you're right and ahead of everyone else?" it said.
It hasn't been difficult.
In truth, since I first wrote about House Bill 2292 - a 2003 bill that sought to replace state workers and field offices with contractor-run call centers and made social-service programs harder to get - I have received more than 1,000 e-mails about it.
A few were mean-spirited communiqués, including some from self-proclaimed Christians who either never learned or forgot the biblical admonitions to care for the sick, give water to the thirsty and food to the hungry, clothe the naked and give shelter to the homeless, among other things.
Most calls, letters and e-mails, however, were from people whose dignity will be shattered - or who may not survive - if they lose their Medicaid or Child Health Insurance Program coverage, Temporary Aid to Needy Families or Food Stamps.
Many find it easy to dismiss them as malingerers and ne'er-do-wells eager to avoid work and live on the dole. But virtually all of them are children of working-poor families - most often, families headed by single mothers - and seniors who wore out their bodies laboring for outfits that never provided benefits or pensions. Others are people with disabilities, many of whom fantasize about working hard.
Along the way, I also received a steady stream of communiqués from Texas Health and Human Services workers who care deeply enough about their clients- ahem, "customers," as the agency prefers they be called - and who, like many teachers, eschew higher-paying jobs to do the work they love.
Their tips have been invaluable.
Most recently, the missives have started coming from employees of the call and computer centers at the heart the $899 million state contract awarded to Bermuda-based Accenture LLC for the call centers that will now have only CHIP applications to mess up.
"Thank you for holding Accenture's feet to the fire," one wrote Wednesday.
"I am an employee assigned at the (call center) in San Antonio and I cannot believe the lack of planning, and just plain screw-ups of the past few months that I have seen. Everything changes, and we are reminded that 'flexibility is key to this job.'
"It has not been uncommon for one procedure to be stated at the beginning of the day and change by noon," the $8-per-hour worker wrote. "Any business with such a plan of execution would fail within months. I often ask myself:
How much more flexible must these dropped clients be forced to be without the benefits they need?"
I have been asking that for months.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/columnists/cguerra/stories/MYSA051106.01B.Guerra.1cf42cff.html
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