Want to see your Missouri tax money at work?
Consider visiting Reston, Virginia or New York City.
First example: Maximus (Helping Government Serve The People) employs 30,000 workers. They have a Call Center, to handle Missouri child support calls, in Jefferson City but the company is headquartered – and sends it profits to – Reston, Virginia.
After years of disputes over the Third Party Verification contract, beginning this summer every Missourian receiving food stamps, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance and other types of aid will have all their personal information – IRS and Social Security records, credit score, health coverage payments and such – scrutinized by Maximus cube farmers. Based on the Request For Proposals I read a few years back, I suspect the farmers will also harvest the lives of relatives of Medicaid seniors subject to the 60 month “look back” rule.
[That’s the requirement that transfers of money, land and other property made less than five years before one gets Medicaid nursing home coverage are subject to reclaiming by the state.]
So, in a state where legislators refused for several years to enact Real I.D. out of a fear of government sharing confidential information on citizens – and, where gun rights folks still see a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program as a threat to gun ownership – Missouri will pay Maximus tens of millions of dollars to trample through confidential data to insure that a child getting $1.29 a meal in food stamps really, really, really qualifies.
Only, despite getting millions of dollars a month, Maximus can’t do anything. Per federal requirements, the action of taking away someone’s food stamps or Medicaid must be reviewed and approved by a state employee. All Maximus will do is send a list of 5,000 to 10,000 recommendations each month to Jefferson City. State employees will have to thoroughly review and verify every recommendation and then take action based on the facts they accumulate.
Yes, Maximus might expand their Jefferson City center to handle the verification process. According to former employees at that location, jobs there offer no benefits and just ‘okay’ pay. Still, Missouri taxpayers will be subsidizing a for-profit Virginia company doing exactly what state employees do.
Second Example: McKinsey, a New York based consulting firm with $10 billion in annual revenue.
Not long ago McKinsey received a $2.7 million contract to review and make suggestions for cost savings to Missouri HealthNet, the state’s Medicaid program. Ironically, that award came through a new, Governor SEAL “streamlined” process to hire outside consultants with less pesky oversight.
Their report ran about 120 pages and included nifty charts. Some of the suggestions, alas, run towards ‘close windows when it is raining.’ (Friends at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri produced a 50 page review of the McKinsey report.) Many Capitol watchers expect that McKinsey has positioned itself for a much larger contract – say, $50 to $100 million – to supervise the implementation of that window closing.
Oh yes, day to day operations of the state are handled by Missouri’s Chief Operating Officer, Drew Erdman. Prior to getting hired by Eric Greitens, Erdman was a partner with – you guessed it – McKinsey. Small world.
The majority party in Jefferson City decries “big government.” Of course, giving tax payer funds to out of state big business is different.
Glenn Koenen