Indiana’s Privatized Welfare System: IBM Wins, the Sick and the Hungry Lose

[Vinnie From Indy]

(reprinted w/permission)

By Fran Quigley



For most her life, Frances Leland didn’t need help paying for her medical care. “I used to work three jobs,” says the 57-year-old from Elwood, IN. “I paid taxes all my life.”

But in the fall of 2007, Leland was infected with the West Nile virus, which caused nerve damage and brain inflammation that put her in the hospital for weeks and a nursing home afterwards. She has been left disabled and unable to work.

Under Indiana law, that made Frances Leland eligible for Medicaid coverage, which she desperately needs to pay for her doctor visits and medicine.

But in December of 2006, Governor Mitch Daniels signed a ten-year $1.16 billion contract with a coalition of private companies led by IBM to take over the determination of eligibility for benefit programs, including Food Stamps and Medicaid. So far, 59 counties, including Leland’s home county of Madison, are under a new automated system that is designed to soon cover Indianapolis and the rest of the state.

Under the previous system, Frances Leland would have had a caseworker assigned to review her application. But the new privatized system has only disembodied staff on phone lines, none of whom have responsibility for any one case. “If you talk to 59 different people, you get 59 different answers,” Leland says.

Finally, eight weeks after applying, Leland got an answer. Her application was denied for “failure to cooperate”— the medical reports she submitted to the document center had been lost, so she was refused Medicaid coverage.

Leland is not alone, unfortunately. I am a part-time staff attorney at Indiana Legal Services, and my colleagues and other social service providers around the state tell of a convoluted combined online/printing/faxing application process, limited staff to respond to problems, and a rash of errors and delays. “It seems like they actually want to discourage you so much that you give up trying to get help,” Leland says.

A December 2008 U.S. Department of Agriculture report shows Indiana with the country’s ninth worst rate for incorrectly denying food stamps applications, with the 12% Indiana negative error rate for 2008 doubling the errors from 2007. For food stamps applicants whose financial situation is so dire that they qualify for emergency food help, Indiana provides that help in a timely manner only 62% of the time—a dismal 44% in the “privatized” counties.

State officials say their error rate has gone down significantly since the time period in the USDA report and they continue to work to fix the delays in awarding food stamps. The Governor insists that the privatized process will ultimately provide better service than the previous system.

But lawsuits have been filed and legislators from both parties are trying to slow down the rollout of the new system. Frances Leland, with the help of the ACLU of Indiana and one of my colleagues at Indiana Legal Services, was finally approved for benefits. She is grateful, but worried about those who weren’t so lucky, and are going without the food and medicine they need.

“It stinks that you have to get a lawyer to fix the problems even when you are clearly qualified,” she says.



This column is online at http://www.indystar.com/article/20090126/OPINION12/901260321/1002/OPINION

[Medical Speaking]

1. Nice

Thats my man Mitch.

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. Are you endorsing these policies?

Cheers!

[ellenfl]

3. i think that was sarcasm. eom