Tuesday, June 06, 2006
According to my sources who are still on the inside, it continues to get worse every day. Timeliness is swirling down the toilet, and the corrective action plan is not to change course from an unworkable plan that is doomed to end in disaster, but to make staff take time away from their work to be retrained on Food Stamp timeliness policies... as if the problem was that people didn't know that applications should be worked in less than 5 months.
Also, staff have been working nearly every Saturday, just so as to have a day that they could wrap up cases without the phone ringing off the hook, and people waiting to see them in the lobby... however, it is now being suggested that they make working Saturday mandatory, and that they open up the office and schedule more appointments, thus eliminating the primary reason people have been working on Saturday voluntarily
.What people who have never actually worked cases do not understand (and these seem to be the people making all the decisions) is that you can interview people all day every day, and not certify a single case. To actually issue benefits, you need some time when you are not interviewing people in order to wrap those cases up, make sure that they are correct, and process them. Otherwise you are just spinning your wheels.
It seems that with the election cycle kicking into high gear in the near future, some people are getting nervous about how all of this will affect their chances of re-election. These "solutions" are non-solutions, that only result in giving the appearance of "doing something". It has long been the case that government agencies such as HHSC approach every problem with the assumption that there is no problem that training and a new report cannot fix. However, when you have a complete breakdown, such as we are now seeing, this is something like providing training to the crew of the Titanic on iceberg evasion, after the ship is already sinking. It may make some people feel better to know that someone is "doing something", but the "something" they are "doing" is a complete waste of time.
Also, with HHSC trying desperately to hang on to the staff they still have who actually know how to work a case, it seems a rather short sighted approach to burn those people out by insisting that they work 6 days a week, when this will obviously result in lower morale, more unplanned leave, and more people who simply find another place to work.
Personally, I thank God that I am no longer at HHSC, even though I often miss the way it used to be and the people I used to work with. Until they hit bottom, and start actually "doing something" to fix this problem, I can't see why anyone would want to stay that wasn't just hanging on to retire in the next year or two.
posted by Fr. John Whiteford @ 9:56 PM
Monday, June 05, 2006
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
WOW! It's amazing how many sites you can find about Accenture's ties to the Republicans currently running Texas. Go to your search engine, type in "Accenture Republicans Texas". Below are just a minor sampling.....
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040714/NEWS/407140620/1060
http://www.cleanuptexaspolitics.com/node/view/479
http://www.soapblox.net/colorado/showDiary.do?diaryId=799
Who got Accenture those contracts? by: pacified January 04, 2006 at 19:51:51 America/Denver
Emulating the national GOP's love of incompetence and cronyism, the Owens Administration has recently had quite the PR debacle over its sweetheart deals to Bermuda-based off-shoring king Accenture.
First, Accenture was contracted to update the Labor Department's computer system. They failed, leaving the state with nothing but a $35 Million bill. Then, it was the canceling of the $10.5 Million contract to build Colorado's statewide voter file. And let's not forget last week when Governor Owens released an official 'Thank You' card to Accenture for failing to deliver, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.
This all begs the question: who got Accenture these deals? Alan over at Progress Now has the answer, unraveling a mystery that starts at Drew T. Durham, former Colorado HAVA director.
pacified :: Who got Accenture those contracts?
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040714/NEWS/407140620/1060
http://www.cleanuptexaspolitics.com/node/view/479
http://www.soapblox.net/colorado/showDiary.do?diaryId=799
Who got Accenture those contracts? by: pacified January 04, 2006 at 19:51:51 America/Denver
Emulating the national GOP's love of incompetence and cronyism, the Owens Administration has recently had quite the PR debacle over its sweetheart deals to Bermuda-based off-shoring king Accenture.
First, Accenture was contracted to update the Labor Department's computer system. They failed, leaving the state with nothing but a $35 Million bill. Then, it was the canceling of the $10.5 Million contract to build Colorado's statewide voter file. And let's not forget last week when Governor Owens released an official 'Thank You' card to Accenture for failing to deliver, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.
This all begs the question: who got Accenture these deals? Alan over at Progress Now has the answer, unraveling a mystery that starts at Drew T. Durham, former Colorado HAVA director.
pacified :: Who got Accenture those contracts?
Opinion: Plan Puts Cuts Above Children's Programs
State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh
Special to the San Angelo Standard Times
6/8/2006
The tax proposals passed this special session continue the 10-year pattern in both Washington, D.C., and Austin of the ''Great Texas Tax Shift,'' in which the wealthiest Texans' taxes are shifted onto the backs of middle- and low-income families, and budgets for key programs like the Children's Health Insurance Program, college loans and public education get cut.
The total tax relief in Gov. Rick Perry's tax plan for those who make less than $54,000 is zero. In fact, those Texas families will pay $7 million more in net taxes. For Texans who make more than $100,000, their taxes are cut a total of $920 million. The governor's priorities are clear: tax cuts over kids.
After 10 years of the George W. Bush era in Texas and six in the nation's capital, we now know the pattern: tax cuts for the wealthy few, budget cuts for you and deficits as far as we can see. During this era, Republicans have worked every session to shift taxes from wealth to work, from the rich to the middle class.
How does this work? Under Bush and Perry tax plans, wealthy donors get big tax cuts, middle-class families get the price of a tank of gas, then the resulting cuts to budgets destroy programs like CHIP that benefit millions of working Texans.
In 2003, Republicans balanced the state budget on the backs of children by cutting CHIP, Medicaid and after-school programs. As of this April, more than 213,000 children have been kicked out of CHIP. Texas already had the highest rate of uninsured children in the U.S. with 21 percent lacking health care coverage - dramatically higher than the national rate of 12 percent.
The result of the tax shift and program cuts is that income has steadily become concentrated in the hands of the wealthy. Texas started the 21st Century with the greatest income inequality in the nation between the richest 20 percent of income earners and the middle 20 percent.
The Texas model has moved to D.C., where Congress recently agreed on and voted out a tax cut package that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy.
In today's politics of the right, tax cuts are valued over children and budget cuts are valued over good teachers. After a decade of right-wing leaders, Texas ranks 50th among the states for high school graduation rates and 48th in the country in SAT scores, and Texas' per-pupil expenditures recently dropped from 35th to 38th in the nation.
If we as a free people do not rise to elect leadership to meet the challenges of educating our children and investing in our future, for the first time in Texas history, we face a tomorrow less prosperous than today.
Shapleigh, a Democrat from El Paso, has served in the Legislature since 1997.
Special to the San Angelo Standard Times
6/8/2006
The tax proposals passed this special session continue the 10-year pattern in both Washington, D.C., and Austin of the ''Great Texas Tax Shift,'' in which the wealthiest Texans' taxes are shifted onto the backs of middle- and low-income families, and budgets for key programs like the Children's Health Insurance Program, college loans and public education get cut.
The total tax relief in Gov. Rick Perry's tax plan for those who make less than $54,000 is zero. In fact, those Texas families will pay $7 million more in net taxes. For Texans who make more than $100,000, their taxes are cut a total of $920 million. The governor's priorities are clear: tax cuts over kids.
After 10 years of the George W. Bush era in Texas and six in the nation's capital, we now know the pattern: tax cuts for the wealthy few, budget cuts for you and deficits as far as we can see. During this era, Republicans have worked every session to shift taxes from wealth to work, from the rich to the middle class.
How does this work? Under Bush and Perry tax plans, wealthy donors get big tax cuts, middle-class families get the price of a tank of gas, then the resulting cuts to budgets destroy programs like CHIP that benefit millions of working Texans.
In 2003, Republicans balanced the state budget on the backs of children by cutting CHIP, Medicaid and after-school programs. As of this April, more than 213,000 children have been kicked out of CHIP. Texas already had the highest rate of uninsured children in the U.S. with 21 percent lacking health care coverage - dramatically higher than the national rate of 12 percent.
The result of the tax shift and program cuts is that income has steadily become concentrated in the hands of the wealthy. Texas started the 21st Century with the greatest income inequality in the nation between the richest 20 percent of income earners and the middle 20 percent.
The Texas model has moved to D.C., where Congress recently agreed on and voted out a tax cut package that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy.
In today's politics of the right, tax cuts are valued over children and budget cuts are valued over good teachers. After a decade of right-wing leaders, Texas ranks 50th among the states for high school graduation rates and 48th in the country in SAT scores, and Texas' per-pupil expenditures recently dropped from 35th to 38th in the nation.
If we as a free people do not rise to elect leadership to meet the challenges of educating our children and investing in our future, for the first time in Texas history, we face a tomorrow less prosperous than today.
Shapleigh, a Democrat from El Paso, has served in the Legislature since 1997.
Misdirected Applications Found
Amy Smith
Austin Chronicle
6/8/2006
Hardly a week goes by without Accenture drawing fire for one snafu after another as the lead player in the state's privatization experiment with public assistance services. The Houston Chronicle added a barrel of fuel to the controversy with last week's report that at least 144 applications from needy Texans mistakenly ended up at a warehouse in Seattle.
The reason? Accenture, the Bermuda-based outsourcing giant on the receiving end of the $899 million contract, listed the wrong fax number when it instructed folks where to send applications for Medicaid, food stamps, children's health insurance, and other services. The documents included the applicants' personal information, such as Social Security numbers and medical histories - not the sort of details you'd want to end up in the wrong hands, much less a warehouse in the Pacific Northwest.
It took months before the case of the missing applicants was straightened out, meaning Accenture and the Health and Human Service Commission didn't commit to get to the bottom of the mystery until reporter Polly Ross Hughes started poking around and asking questions. In light of this latest revelation, the Texas State Employees Union has stepped up its public demands for state officials to follow the lead of several other states and yank the Accenture contract.
"If state employees had compromised confidential information like this, they would be fired in a heartbeat. The same standard should apply to Accenture," said TSEU Vice-President Mike Gross.
Austin Chronicle
6/8/2006
Hardly a week goes by without Accenture drawing fire for one snafu after another as the lead player in the state's privatization experiment with public assistance services. The Houston Chronicle added a barrel of fuel to the controversy with last week's report that at least 144 applications from needy Texans mistakenly ended up at a warehouse in Seattle.
The reason? Accenture, the Bermuda-based outsourcing giant on the receiving end of the $899 million contract, listed the wrong fax number when it instructed folks where to send applications for Medicaid, food stamps, children's health insurance, and other services. The documents included the applicants' personal information, such as Social Security numbers and medical histories - not the sort of details you'd want to end up in the wrong hands, much less a warehouse in the Pacific Northwest.
It took months before the case of the missing applicants was straightened out, meaning Accenture and the Health and Human Service Commission didn't commit to get to the bottom of the mystery until reporter Polly Ross Hughes started poking around and asking questions. In light of this latest revelation, the Texas State Employees Union has stepped up its public demands for state officials to follow the lead of several other states and yank the Accenture contract.
"If state employees had compromised confidential information like this, they would be fired in a heartbeat. The same standard should apply to Accenture," said TSEU Vice-President Mike Gross.
Privatization doesn’t sound so bad.
Hey guys, you can comment on this story in Indiana. Please write them and tell them the real story about privatization here in Texas. It isn't just that we were trying to do a computer system at the same time. There is more to it than that -- like state employees know what they are doing and the private contracts can't seem to get it together!
By Laurie Berkshire
" One thing about privatization, it provokes some strong opinions! Indiana is going full-throttle into privatization, beginning with the toll road and continuing with the food stamp program. It doesn’t sound so bad to me....."
The sender says: To read the rest of the story, go to
http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/columns/local_story_156152254.html
By Laurie Berkshire
" One thing about privatization, it provokes some strong opinions! Indiana is going full-throttle into privatization, beginning with the toll road and continuing with the food stamp program. It doesn’t sound so bad to me....."
The sender says: To read the rest of the story, go to
http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/columns/local_story_156152254.html
Black hole
Fate of 144 missing social service enrollment forms should mark a turning point for the state
By Editorial Board
Houston Chronicle
Not even the fiercest critics of Texas' social service privatization scheme envisioned it. For the past three months, according to Chronicle reporter Polly Ross Hughes, dozens of private health and financial forms faxed to the Health and Human Services Commission belched forth instead into the Take Care Store warehouse in Seattle.
No critic could predict the snafu, and no lawmaker - even those who pushed the disastrous privatizing of benefits screening - would wish it. A wrongly printed form, it turns out, may have given applicants the wrong fax number.
Knowing medical confidentiality laws, Seattle warehouse employee Shaun Peck promptly shredded many of the Texas documents he got. On May 9, an associate of Peck's company made a call and sent two e-mails to the Health and Human Services Commission to report the mix-up.
Unbelievably, no one there took action. Three weeks later, the Seattle warehouse fax machine was still spitting out Texas application forms.
The so-called "black hole" episode just adds to the damage already inflicted by Accenture, the new screening contractor that wrongly disenrolled numerous Texas children from health insurance for the working poor. The incidents worsen the effect of new enrollment policies, which make qualifying for that insurance harder.
The cumulative result: Since November 2005, Children's Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance enrollments have dropped by 128,000. The losers are not just the children. They're the citizens whose county taxes needlessly cover stratospheric emergency room fees for children who lacked access to routine visits to the doctor.
HHSC has shown chagrin over the latest mishap. Official Anne Heiligenstein pledged the agency will try to make "whole" those applicants affected when their paperwork vanished in Seattle. It will be hard, though, to establish who was affected, since so many papers were shredded.
There are some other signs HHSC grasps the magnitude of its privatization mess. The agency recently held a Houston enrollment fair to help working-poor families sign up for CHIP. HHSC now consults child advocates on how to improve enrollment.
But there's serious repair work to do. A coalition of child advocates, state hospitals and health plan organizers has devised a responsible proposal.
HHSC, they said, needs to:
* Stop further CHIP disenrollments until Accenture meets basic performance levels.
* Request that the 2007 Legislature reinstate 12-month eligibility for CHIP/Medicaid
enrollment. The current six-month rule churns out more paperwork for the state and dissuades some eligible families from re-upping.
*Suspend roll-out of the "integrated eligibility system" - which would expand the same privatized screening already in place for CHIP to other programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.
In short, no one else should be exposed to this privatization scheme until it works. Too many young Texans, and too many individuals' tax dollars, have already been dispatched into the void.
By Editorial Board
Houston Chronicle
Not even the fiercest critics of Texas' social service privatization scheme envisioned it. For the past three months, according to Chronicle reporter Polly Ross Hughes, dozens of private health and financial forms faxed to the Health and Human Services Commission belched forth instead into the Take Care Store warehouse in Seattle.
No critic could predict the snafu, and no lawmaker - even those who pushed the disastrous privatizing of benefits screening - would wish it. A wrongly printed form, it turns out, may have given applicants the wrong fax number.
Knowing medical confidentiality laws, Seattle warehouse employee Shaun Peck promptly shredded many of the Texas documents he got. On May 9, an associate of Peck's company made a call and sent two e-mails to the Health and Human Services Commission to report the mix-up.
Unbelievably, no one there took action. Three weeks later, the Seattle warehouse fax machine was still spitting out Texas application forms.
The so-called "black hole" episode just adds to the damage already inflicted by Accenture, the new screening contractor that wrongly disenrolled numerous Texas children from health insurance for the working poor. The incidents worsen the effect of new enrollment policies, which make qualifying for that insurance harder.
The cumulative result: Since November 2005, Children's Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance enrollments have dropped by 128,000. The losers are not just the children. They're the citizens whose county taxes needlessly cover stratospheric emergency room fees for children who lacked access to routine visits to the doctor.
HHSC has shown chagrin over the latest mishap. Official Anne Heiligenstein pledged the agency will try to make "whole" those applicants affected when their paperwork vanished in Seattle. It will be hard, though, to establish who was affected, since so many papers were shredded.
There are some other signs HHSC grasps the magnitude of its privatization mess. The agency recently held a Houston enrollment fair to help working-poor families sign up for CHIP. HHSC now consults child advocates on how to improve enrollment.
But there's serious repair work to do. A coalition of child advocates, state hospitals and health plan organizers has devised a responsible proposal.
HHSC, they said, needs to:
* Stop further CHIP disenrollments until Accenture meets basic performance levels.
* Request that the 2007 Legislature reinstate 12-month eligibility for CHIP/Medicaid
enrollment. The current six-month rule churns out more paperwork for the state and dissuades some eligible families from re-upping.
*Suspend roll-out of the "integrated eligibility system" - which would expand the same privatized screening already in place for CHIP to other programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.
In short, no one else should be exposed to this privatization scheme until it works. Too many young Texans, and too many individuals' tax dollars, have already been dispatched into the void.
Got this from another worker....
Just thought I would share this.....I had to call 2-1-1, which is not even able to be dialed from here.....I had to call the long distance number. I am checking on a TP40 case for my sister in law who lives in Houston. She applied for TP40 on May 1 and has yet to hear a decision from them. She can't get her local office to help, she can't call 2-1-1 and has to call the 713 long distance number only to be told her case is in processing. So I called today for some answers.....ha.....the poor girl that answered the phone would not even give me information on the case even though I am an employee of the state. I asked to speak to her supervisor and after holding for at least 4-5 times, she told me the same thing (and I think she had to be maybe 20 years old)...."The case is in processing and she does not know why the case is taking so long." I asked about the 15 day time frame and she agreed with that, but again, had no answer as to why her case was not complete. I asked if she could find out and contact me back. She said it would takea couple of days....we are waiting....and I am calling back. She also told me it may be best to just fax in another application.
I can only imagine how horrible this if for all of these clients. I strongly encouraged my sister in law to contact all her reps and whoever else about this. I just thought I would share. At least she found out her stuff was not sent to Seattle.......now if that is not embarrassing!
(Note from Blogger: This is not the first time I've heard that TAA will not release information to the local offices! I'm glad to learn they are at least trying to follow the confidentiality laws but I think they are really confused about what to keep confidential from whom!)
Good analogy....
A Japanese auto company and an American auto company decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.
Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 personsteering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. So,the American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.
They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system thatwould give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program", with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted developmentof a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved, was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was outsourced to India.
( Note from Blogger: This was sent to me from a friend in Canada...it is not my original work, nor hers.....)
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.
Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 personsteering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. So,the American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.
They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system thatwould give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program", with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted developmentof a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved, was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was outsourced to India.
( Note from Blogger: This was sent to me from a friend in Canada...it is not my original work, nor hers.....)
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