Heritage Property and Casualty Insurance Co. Scores Citizens Policies
Via Daily Kos: the Tampa Bay Times reports Heritage Property and Casualty Insurance Co. donated $110,000 to Gov. Rick Scott's re-election campaign 2 months ago. Heritage is now set to $52 million to take 60,000 policies from the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Scott's office claims that the campaign contributions have nothing to do with Citizens decisions to sell policies to Heritage.
Scott's office said the governor played no role in the $52 million deal at Citizens, and campaign contributions were not a factor. "We expect (the board) to approve or disapprove of this risk transfer based solely on its merits," said Melissa Sellers, a spokeswoman for Scott. "Anything short of that would harm Citizens policyholders and Florida residents who back Citizens policies."
Apparently, even Republican state Rep. Frank Artiles isn't buying the spin.
"Citizens' board continues to fall prey to Tallahassee lobbyists who cook up these get rich funding schemes," said Rep. Frank Artiles, R-Miami.
Scott previously tried to kill Citizens. The Gainesville Sun reported that Scott proposal was too radical for private insurers.
The industry lobbyists protested that Florida carriers could not absorb all of Citizens' business, records show. The gap would force many Florida property owners to turn to the unregulated surplus lines market, where rates are unchecked and policies are not backed by a state guarantee fund.
A lobbyist who attended the meeting advised others by email that Gov. Scott knew about the gap, but was not bothered.
"He doesn't seem to care whether they are insured in the voluntary market or surplus lines," the lobbyist wrote.
Citizens is far from perfects. Citizen executives have used public money to pay for lavish expenses. Former Citizens executive R. Paul Hulsebusch accepted a motorcycle from Quantum Claim Service. To say Citizens is dysfunctional would be an understatement. Scott selling policies for campaign contributions doesn't help matters.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Gov. Rick Scott to not the AG Holley State Hospital in Lantana. AG Holley was Florida's only state-run tuberculosis clinic. Scott was obsessed with privatizing Florida's health care system. An ideas about privatization saves money goes out the window when the numbers of TB outbreak are revealed.
At that point, a disease that can cost $500 to overcome grows exponentially more costly. The average cost to treat a drug-resistant strain is more than $275,000, requiring up to two years on medications. For this reason, the state pays for public health nurses to go to the home of a person with TB every day to observe them taking their medications.
It is estimated that 3,000 people during a two year time span in the Jacksonville area contracted TB. Duval County failed to to heed the advice of the CDC.
At the end of the first Epi-Aid in 2009, the CDC’s high-priority list was 440 names long. Finding them was important, because a high percentage were testing positive, some with the contagious, active form of the disease. Without treatment, they could make many more people sick.
Apparently, that’s exactly what happened.
On its return trip this year, the CDC found its high-priority contact list as of April had grown sixfold to 2,488 people, a daunting number for a cash-strapped public health agency to track down and monitor. And so within the high-priority list, it created a “hot list” of must-test contacts.
CDC epidemiologist Dr. Kiren Mitruka had investigated both outbreaks. By June 20, her frustration was clear.
Since (the Duval County Health Department) currently has no epidemiologist or data manager focusing on TB issues, something we recommended and funded after the 2009 Epi-Aid as well, it will be very important to ensure any funding we provide for that purpose is clearly designated,” she told Florida officials
“As we saw during our return tech assist earlier this month, work to date has only been able to identify 25 contacts from the outbreak investigation ‘hot list’ …”
Duval County did not have a person qualified to screen for TB. The reason was the health care budget cuts by Gov. Scott and the Florida legislature. The Scott administration's response was to cover-up any news about a TB outbreak. Former Scott spokeman Brian Burgess made the rare mistake of using his public email account. The Scott administration have used private email accounts to skirt Florida's Sunshine law.
It was Burgess who in July accidentally used his state email account — rather than the personal account he preferred to use — to direct Department of Health communications staff that it was “time for some serious debunking” of The Post’s July 8 report on Jacksonville’s TB outbreak.
What he most objected to was the argument that the state intentionally had kept the outbreak under wraps until after the closure of A.G. Holley.
He also repeatedly has objected to the use of the word “outbreak,” a word he associated with disaster movies, not illnesses that affect several hundred people. Burgess said the word “cluster” should be used to describe Jacksonville’s problem. However, the CDC’s emails and reports all use “outbreak.”
This is what happens when conservative ideology takes precedent good governing.
The Hillsbororough County Democratic Party reports that SB 2038 in coming to the floor of the Florida Senate. The bill would allow prison privatization in several Southern Florida counties. An accompanying bill, SB 2036, would allow no state oversight of private prisons for the first five years. This is a pure pork bill for lobbyists.
The HCDC asks that you contact area state senators to vote against SB 2038.
For information on the corrosive impact of corporations on government decisions through ALEC click here.
Please call area GOP Senators (Storms, Latvala, Norman) before Tuesday - Ask them to vote NO on SB 2038. Contact information is here.
There has been much criticism about SB 2036. The bill would forbid the Florida government from collecting data on whether or not private prisons would save the state money. Under current law, an evaluation of all private contracts for five fiscal years of any outsourced contract of $10 million. SB 2036 would make private prisons exempt. J.D. Alexander claims he backs privatization of state prisons to save tax dollars. However, Alexander would not open the floor to prison workers or answer Sen. Mike Fasano's questions about cost. Alexander is doing his best to not to find out what the cost of prison privatization would cost taxpayers.
Alexander, John Thrasher, and Don Gaetz are the sponsors of SB 2036. State prisons are overseen by the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee. Senate President Mike Haridopolos would not allow the CCJAC to hold a hearing on SB 2036 and its companion bill. That did not stop the committee's chairman, Sen. Mike Fasano, from asking about the cost of prison privatization. Haridopolos removed Fasano from the chair today.
"As President of the Senate, I just felt I had lost confidence in him to fulfill that mission," he told reporters.
Translation: Haridopolos punished Fasano for not playing ball. Fasano told reporter Gary Fineout that getting the boot from Haridopolos is a "badge of honor."
Haridopolos, Alexander, Thrasher, and Gaetz desperately want privatization to go through because of the campaign contributions from Corrections Corp. of America and the Geo Group. Both companies would be awarded contracts if the legislature and Gov. Rick Scott pass and sign the privatization prison proposal. The fact that elected officials are fighting not to have oversight over CCA and the Geo Group reeks of corruption.
JD Alexander Fighting to Keep Private Prison Costs Secret
The Orlando Sentinel asked J.D. Alexander if questions on if privatized prisons would save Florida money were valid. Alexander, Senate Budget Committee chairman, had an amazing answer.
"I don't think the it's genuine criticism," Alexander said.
Not that Alexander has heard a lot of "criticism." Alexander allowed only two citizens the opportunity to speak to the committee. One of the speakers was a lobbyist for Florida Tax Watch, a group that supports the privatization of prisons.
Another point of the matter: the Senate Budget Committee has done no studies of whether private prisons would save Florida money. In fact, Alexander is one of the sponsors of SB 2036. The bill forbids the Florida legislature from collecting economic data on private prisons. SB 2036 would exempt private prison from given states economic data for the first five years. Under current law, any outsourced or private run state program must provide cost data for the first five years of its existence. Alexander can't say criticism about cost is unjust, since he has no idea what the cost is. Alexander is making sure no one else finds out what the cost will be.
For someone who claims to be trying to save taxpayers money, Alexander only allowed the budget committee 3 minutes to debate. The debate dealt with amendments. There was no serious policy discussion detailing costs. Sen. Mike Fasano questioned to committee about costs. The Orlando Sentinel doesn't say if this produced any answers. Fasano has been against the privatization plan.
The Sentinel article notes that Corrections Corp. of America and the Geo Group would likely be awarded contacts, if the privatization plan passes (which is highly likely.) CCA and the Geo Group have donated lavishly to Florida Republicans. Privatization of prisons may not make sense for Florida taxpayers. But it makes a whole lot of sense for the Florida Republican establishment.
An act relating to the outsourcing or privatization of agency functions; amending s. F.S. 216.023, F.S.; providing that certain information relating to the outsourcing or privatization of an agency function that is expressly required by law is not required to be included in the agency's legislative budget request until after the contract for such functions is executed; amending s. 287.057, F.S.; providing that procurements for outsourcing or privatizing agency functions that are expressly required by law are exempt from the requirement that they are evaluated for cost-effectiveness, and efficiency; amending s. 944.105, F.S.; providing that certain requirements that apply to the Department of Corrections' contract do not apply to contracts for outsourcing or privatizating the operation or maintenance of correctional facilities which are expressly required by law; providing an effective date.
If the bill becomes law, the state would not be allowed to evalulate the performance of private prison contractors. Contractors could not be legally mandated to provide reports detailing prision health or safety issues.
Another issue that proves that that Republicans are not fiscally conservative. The state would have no idea if they are saving money under private prisons. Which is exactly why Senate President Mike Haridopolos is trying to fast track this bill. Haridopolos and other Republicans know for-profit prisons will cost the state more. The rush is because private prison companies have given $400,000 to Florida Republicans during the last election cycle.
Last session, Dr. Michael Hallett sent a letter to Sen. Mike Fasano warning him about giving private prisons too much power.
"It renders the state subject to captivity once the contract is awarded, by giving one corporation so much power and control over such a significant segment of the state budget," he said. "You can't turn this around on a moments notice."
Fasano is the chairman of the Criminal and Civil Appropiations subcommittee. All legislation on the state suppose to go through Fasano's subcommittee. Haridopolos decided to have SB 2036 go through the rules committee. The bill is so bad that no senator will take credit for being its author.
Haridopolos and other Republicans create red tape that makes it hard to collect unemployment or children to be enrolled in Kidcare. They do this under the claim that they are fiscal conservatives. Yet, these same Republicans are writing legislation intended to forbid them from finding out if there are cost overruns with private prisons. When a politician says he or she is a fiscal conservative, what that poll really means is he or she corporatist who doesn't give a shit about the taxpayers' money.
Update:Via Twitter: Sen Paula Dockery informed me that the sponsers of SB 2036 are John Thrasher, Don Gaetz, and J.D. Alexander.
Dr. Michael Hallett, Professor & Chair for the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, sent a letter to Sen. Mike Fasano detailing the problems with Florida's rush to privatize prisons. Hallett warns Fasano that awarding prison contracts with no bid contracts will cost Florida more.
"It renders the state subject to captivity once the contract is awarded, by giving one corporation so much power and control over such a significant segment of the state budget," he said. "You can’t turn this around on a moments notice."
Hallett informs Fasano that one letter isn't enough to describe just how bad the prison privatization is.
"There are so many serious problems with this RFP that it is not easy to digest in one document," he wrote in the memo he sent to Fasano.
Despite claims by Gov. Rick Scott, privatization of Florida's prison system will cost the taxpayers more. The private prison system has resulted in horrible health care abuses that have resulted in inmates dying. Private prison companies have spent millions lobbying for longer sentences. Private prison companies are in it to make a profit. Scott's talking points of privatization saving taxpayers money denies logic.
Corrections Corporation of America has donated heavily to the Republican Party of Florida and to Scott.
Corrections Corp. of America, headquartered in Nashville, Tenn., runs four prisons, and Management Training Corp., based in Utah, runs one.
Those three companies are prime financiers of the Republican Party. GEO Group alone gave more than $400,000 to the party in the past election cycle and another $25,000 to Scott's inaugural bash.
This is cynical opportunism. This has nothing to do with saving tax dollars.
Rep. Kathy Castor comes out against Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare. Ryan proposed repealing the Affordable Care Act.
The Congressional Budget Office scored the House Republicans bill Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. CBO estimated repealing health care reform would add $145 billion to the deficit by 2019. The federal budget would lose the $130 reduction that the Affordable Care Act legislation created. Repealing Obama's signature legislation will not increase access to health care.
Under H.R. 2, about 32 million fewer nonelderly people would have health insurance in 2019, leaving a total of about 54 million nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would be about 83 percent, compared with a projected share of 94 percent under current law...
The CBO scored that Ryan's budget would increase the deficit and health care premiums for seniors.
Under the proposal, most elderly people who would be entitled to premium support payments would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary's spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark amount: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary's share would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.
Federal payments for Medicaid under the proposal would be substantially smaller than currently projected amounts. States would have additional flexibility to design and manage their Medicaid programs, and they might achieve greater efficiencies in the delivery of care than under current law. Even with additional flexibility, however, the large projected reduction in payments would probably require states to decrease payments to Medicaid providers, reduce eligibility for Medicaid, provide less extensive coverage to beneficiaries, or pay more themselves than would be the case under current law.
This is about Republicans destroying the Great Society programs. This has nothing to do with lowering the deficit or improving health care.
Privatization of FLA Prisons Failed Before & Will Again
A $66.5 billion budget proposal to privatize prisons is moving forward in the Florida House Appropriations Committee. Republicans have once claimed that privatization would be the gateway to taxpayers saving. These days, Republicans say government is evil and the private sector is righteous. Never-mind that these same Republicans receive a government paycheck.
It is hard for Republicans to say that privatization will either save money or work more effectually? The privatization mandate started by Gov. Jeb Bush yielded no examples of fiscal conservatism.
The Department of Children & Families found that privatization led to child abuse. Bush's former Corrections Secretary Jim Crosby pleaded guilty to receiving kickback money from contractors.
Crosby's downfall came after a particularly difficult 2005.
The rollout of Bush's most ambitious single contract, handing over all state personnel functions to private company Convergys, went terribly.
The company repeatedly stumbled in cutting paychecks for state employees or accurately providing employee benefits.
Compounding the controversy were allegations that a Convergys' subcontractor shipped state employees' personal information to India for data processing.
Is this what Republicans consider the virtues how how the free market work better than government. There is also Ray Samson inserting an earmark to award a prison contract to Xe Services LLC. The company was formerly known as Blackwater. Even Republicans aren't singing the praises of the company investigating for the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians.
Bush's own inspector general Bill Monroe could not find if privatization saved taxpayers. The Bush administration kept horrible records of private contracts. Former efficiency expert Ruth Sykes said Bush ruled by fear and would not heed warning about the contracts.
"As I told the governor, people have the answers, your employees have the answers," she told me at the time. "They know where the waste is; they know where the problems are. They will help you if you let them, if they have the motivation to help."
What state employees had under Bush was fear. "You feel like you can't voice your opinion and be critical," Sykes said back then. "I felt like I was exposing things - 'This is a different way, consider this' - and this is what I was brought here to do."
A state audit could not find any savings from privatization under Bush. It would seem prisons and other government departments did not work more efficiently under privatization. What was found that companies that awarded campaigns contributions to Republicans got Florida government contracts. It was also a nice way for Bush to make government union members lose their jobs.
I was once open to privatization. Anyone who has stood in line at the Department of Motor Vehicle or the post office knows government isn't perfect. The problem is Republicans have no interest in overseeing their own policies and place politics above governing. This is why the GOP's policy proposals always fail. There have been too many examples of incompetence and campaign-financing greed. Republicans don't deserve the benefit of the doubt on privatization.
Breast cancer survivor Cathy Bossi went through a humiliating body search conducted by T.S.A. agents. Bossi was forced to remove for bra in front of agents.
She says two female Charlotte T.S.A. agents took her to a private room and began what she calls an aggressive pat down. She says they stopped when they got around to feeling her right breast… the one where she'd had surgery.
Pat-down Backlash: Child groped during pat-down? What are the rules?
"She put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?'. And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that'."
Cathy was asked to show her prosthetic breast, removing it from her bra.
"I did not take the name of the person at the time because it was just so horrific of an experience, I couldn't believe someone had done that to me. I'm a flight attendant. I was just trying to get to work."
The original goal of the T.S.A. screenings was to make flying safer from potential terrorist attacks. What we are seeing now is citizens being humiliated and having legally questionable searches conducted on their bodies. People have had enough of having to be accosted in airports.
John Mica is the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. A CBS News story reports that Mica is a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration. That is interesting considering that Mica's committee oversees TSA. Mica also crafted the legislation that created TSA. It is interesting that Mica is an opponent of something he helped create.
Mica is using the TSA controversy to privatize TSA. This would personally benefit Mica and his campaign contributors.
Companies that could gain business if airports heed Mica's call have helped fill his campaign coffers. In the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports.
What is interesting is Mica has written no legislation requiring people traveling on private planes to go through screenings, no showing of ID and patdowns.
Mica was at the forefront of the legislative effort to create the Transportation Security Administration. He placed the risks associated with private air travel in the context of an entire spectrum of risk. In other words, he reminded me, the United States has more urgent vulnerabilities than spring flights aboard Cessnas.
"We're concerned," Mica told me, "but you can't protect yourself against every single small aircraft or every vehicle. So you look at the biggest risk, the terrorist plot that can do the most damage. They're not interested in taking out a few folks, as we've seen. They're interested in taking out thousands and doing a lot of psychological damage, which also affects our economic stability. Again, you just can't protect yourself against every eventuality."
Short version: Mica isn't going to require wealthy people go through intrusive patdowns or long waits. Mica's reasoning is "but you can't protect yourself against every single small aircraft or every vehicle." If Mica really feels that way then why even have screenings.
How Rick Scott Will Help Health Care Providers Make Money
Governor-elect Rick Scott gave a speech to Florida business leaders. Scott gave a sign his tem is going to be less transparent than his campaign. The press was not allowed in the event.
There are savings to be had in our Corrections System. We can bring down the costs per prisoner of incarceration by competitively bidding health care contracts and paying competitive salaries for prison staff. Prison staff should be paid as well, but not better, than comparable private sector employees.
We should drug test welfare recipients to make sure we aren’t inadvertently subsidizing addictions.
We need to get a waiver to reform our Medicaid program and rework our health care benefits for state employees. Consumer directed care will lower the costs and increase the available choices. I have considerable experience in driving down health care costs while maintaining quality. The cost saving measures we put into place at Columbia /HCA drove down national health care inflation from 18% to 8% in seven years.
Scott made some statements that were laughable. We can remember the controversy of former House Speaker Ray Samson inserting an amendment to award a prison contract to Blackwater (now known as Xe Services.) In Naples Florida, the private health care provider Prison Health Services failed to adequately treat a pregnant 24 year-old woman. The woman miscarried in the Collier County jail. The woman sued Prison Health Services.
A story Litbrit, Lindsay Beyerstein and I blogged on in 2007. In Hillsborogh County, a nurse for the private health provider Armor Correctional Health Inc. refused to give a rape victim the morning after pill. Shockingly, the rape victim was arrested trying to report being raped.
There are numerous stories like this. Scott will make a ton of money off privatizing the prison system without actually providing savings for the state. Health care companies will make money drug testing people who are unemployed or on welfare. Scott hasn't provided any data to back that claim. As far as Scott's business background give him the tools to save the government money - anyone whose company Columbia/HCa was fined $1.7 billion for ripping off Medicare as no credibility.
More Marco Rubio Economoc Nonsense: Social Security Edition
Alex Burgos of the Marco Rubio campaign went way off the message by telling blogger and Miami Herald columnist Joy-Ann Reid that Rubio supports privatization of Social Security. Rubio would later run away from supporting privatization of Social Security. Read copies of the emails below and click to enlarge.
Reid explains that Rubio hasn't been honest about his position on Social Security.
Here was my inquiry on February 3rd of this year, regarding Marco Rubio’s view on Social Security privatization, and Mr. Burgos’ on the record response. I was asking Burgos to respond to Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling’s call to turn Social Security over to the private sector and cutting benefits, so again, the question was specifically about privatizing the program:
RUBIO: Anyone telling you that we shouldn’t touch [Social Security], they are going to play tricky political games, they’re going to go around saying that I’m in favor of privatizing it, or raising the retirement age on current beneficiaries —
CAVUTO: But you are open to privatizing it, sir?
RUBIO: No, I think for that — no I’m not. That time has come and gone.
CAVUTO: What about for young guys like you who could take some of the money and put it in the market?
RUBIO: The problem is that it takes money — it makes it more difficult to balance the system in the long term.
CAVUTO: Do you’d be against it?
RUBIO: Yeah, I don’t think that’s the solution.
Allowing future retirees to invest Social Security taxes into the stock and bond market does nothing to address the funding needs for current or future retirees who wish to stay in the government Social Security Trust Fund. An AARP study found changing over the current Social Security system to private accounts would cost $600 billion - $3 trillion. Recipients of private account would either get less or a negative return. The Wall Street meltdown of 2008 shows how asinine an idea private accounts are.
There are a few factors for conservatives push to privatization. Conservatives hate the successful programs of the New Deal. Interest groups in the financial sector would greatly benefit from the influx of Social Security money into the stock and bond market. Conservatives needed an expert to tell them what they hear They found an unlikely ally in José Piñera.
Piñera was the architect of Chile's private pension plan under the government of Augusto Pinochet. The lattter is noted for abusing the human rights of Chileans. The New York Times reported "3,200 people were executed or disappeared, and scores of thousands more were detained and tortured or exiled." Chile's private pension system was filled with corruption and underfunded by younger workers wisely choosing not to enter the system. To make matters worse, Chile's private retirement system is expensive.
At the moment, the government pays about 5 percent of gross domestic product, or more than it spends for either health or education, on pensions for the poor, payments into a separate military retirement plan and so-called transition and administrative costs. Supporters of the privatized system argue that the state's burden will diminish as older retirees enrolled in the pay-as-you-go system that prevailed here before 1981 gradually die off.
But skeptics point to another developing problem: many young people, who should be enrolling in the system early to accrue maximum benefit, are staying out or paying in very little. Some cannot afford to contribute beyond the obligatory minimum payment, which is 10 percent of wages, while others are either self-employed or have been hired by companies as low-paid independent contract workers and therefore do not have to contribute at all.
"The bottom line is that this system does not work with this labor market," said Andras Uthoff, an economist who is director of the social development division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America here. If trends continue, he added, "only a small percentage of people are going to be able to finance meaningful pensions. What happens then to the rest?"
The Social Security Trust Fund is projected to run out in 2041. Social Security is much more stable than the faulty accounting that is the Department of Defense budget. Conservatives want to trade a retirement fund that has lifted million of Americans out of poverty for a failed banana Republic system. From a fiscal policy standpoint it makes no sense. From a purely cynical profit and greed motive it becomes easier to understand why conservatives want the Chile system.
Side note: the AARP study and reports on Chile's private accounts debunk Milton Friedman's claim that movement Socail Security accounts to private accounts is a "myth."
Politifact rates Rick Scott's claim that Alex Sink wants to cut Medicare false. As I noted, Sink as Governor would not have the executive power to cut Medicare. Sink made the same point herself.
"That's how he's setting it up. He'll be calling me names for the next nine weeks," she told reporters. "I don't even know where he got that from. Of course I don't want to cut Medicare ….. It's a federal issue."
Medicare is a federal program. The governor of Florida does not have the power to cut a national program.
As CEO of Columbia/HCA, Scott advocated abolishing Medicare and Medicaid. Scott wanted all health care to be privatized. Which would also financially help companies such as Columbia/HCA. The poor and uninsured would be left at the mercy of private health care providers.
"Let us make a profit. So what?" Scott told USA Today in 1994.
The guy is all heart.
Scott also wanted to abolish the Veterans Administration.
"If you look at how the government runs VA hospitals and Medicare and Medicaid, you can see that the whole system is inefficient," Scott told the South Florida Business Journal the same year. "The things we are doing wrong in health care can be corrected if private business could run national health care administration."
Rachel Mayo of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society found that the VA provides "the best value in health care."
Another key to the VHA’s turnaround was its close tracking of performance measurements. Providing higher quality care was a major focus for the system as changes were implemented. This started with a reengineering effort beginning in 1995, which was focused on making quality management more systematic. The VHA began with a determined effort to create a product that had the best value in the market. Management defined several quality dimensions to focus on during reengineering:
• Personnel/human resources – hire and keep the top prospects available • Clinical care activities – perform the clinical activities which are necessary for good health • Performance indicators – establish and keep track of important indicators • Internal review and improvement – involve all groups across organization in improvement • External review and oversight – get an outside opinion of progress
Scott's companies Columbia/HCA and Solantic have been accused of Medicare fraud. Scott has forfeited his right to be taken seriously as a voice on health care issues. The fact that Scott is accusing Sink of cutting the same Medicare system he wishes to destroy is laughable.
In 2008, former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom inserted an amendment that would privatize five state prisons. The contracts would go to Blackwater. The company is now known as Xe Services LLC. Blackwater best known for the controversial killing of 17 Iraqi civilians. Judge Ricardo M. Urbina dropped the charges against the accused Blackwater guards.
Florida Sen. Paula Dockery is opposed to the Blackwater contract. The town of Sneads's economy depends of the state jobs provided by the prison. Dockery issued a press release.
Senator Paula Dockery (R-Lakeland), is strongly opposed to the lengthy proviso language that was quietly inserted into the Senate’s proposed budget during last week’s Ways & Means Committee hearing. “The proposal to close unnamed existing correctional facilities resulting in the layoffs of over 1,000 state corrections officers to move inmates to private facilities is a policy decision that deserves to be vetted through a completely transparent process. As chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, I find it outrageous that major change in how we run our state correctional facilities was not reviewed by committees that were created for this explicit purpose,” said Senator Dockery. “Transparency cannot exist when there has been no opportunity for debate or testimony.”
A hush contract given to Blackwater. Maybe this is what Ray Sansom meant by saying he was a man of values. Those same values allowed Sansom to use the Republican Party of Florida credit card to buy expensive meals and tuxedo rentals. Sansom's strong values allowed him to never repay the RPoF for his lavish spending.
The Miami Herald has a disturbing article on the problems with the Department of Children & Families.
In southern Sarasota, nearly one in four former foster kids is homeless. In St. Augustine, fewer than one in 10 foster children age 17 is performing at grade level. And in Miami, Tampa and Daytona Beach, fewer than one in four 17-year-old foster kids passed Florida's high-stakes standardized assessment test.
DCF Secretary Bob Butterworth correctly calls this child abuse. The reason many foster children are homeless is to escape sexual and physical abuse. The article details that privatization of child services has hurt and not helped the DCF. WE can thank Jeb Bush for the privatization madness.
Children are not given education plans are taught money management skills. The short answer is these kids are not ready for the real world when they leave DCF services.
Charlie Crist: Two Moneylosing Ideas For the Price of One
In spite of my best blogging efforts (here, here and here), Charlie Crist signed a bill to sell state roads to private companies. These companies will make Floridians pay to drive on roads they already paid for with their tax dollars.
I have pointed out before that Florida has a horrible record with privatization. The state does not make money off of hiring private companies to manage services they could do themselves. The state would have to pay a middleman. That is like buying from a retailer when you can go straight to the wholesale warehouse to purchase the same item. It's stupid. The only reason Republicans like this idea is because it helps businesses that contribute to the party. It makes no economic sense.
NEW TAMPA - On paper, you'd think Helen Green fits the profile of someone who might benefit from a Hillsborough commissioner's idea to turn Bruce B. Downs Boulevard into a toll road.
She's 78. Lives in the New Tampa community of Pebble Creek. Shops at Wal-Mart on Regents Park Drive.
If anything, toll collections on the county line - an idea suggested Wednesday by Commissioner Ken Hagan - would help widen the artery that's a traffic lifeline for Green.
But, well, here's what she thinks:
"It's so stupid, it doesn't make sense. Today, I went to my chiropractor in Pasco. I don't want to have to pay to get there and back. I think it's ridiculous."
"I don't know if it's good or bad at this point," cautioned Crist, who acknowledged he had not floated these concepts by state legislative leaders. "But I think it's important to continue to be innovative."
He didn't figure out if it's "good or bad" before he signed the bill. Amazing.
Crist is thinking about selling the lottery. How exactly is this suppose to make money for the state in the longterm? The lottery grosses over $4 billion-a-year. It raises 1.2 billion for education. The lottery isn't the moneymaker for schools that the state has wanted citizens to believe.
"What I understand is that sometimes there are those in private industry who will give you significant upfront dollars, in the billions, for a lottery or for a road like Alligator Alley," Crist said.
Are these billions more than what the lottery will earn in 10 years? These companies see the lottery as a huge potential moneymaker. I see Crist as a sucker whom would buy the worst junker at a used car lot. These companies must love Florida's new governor. He is an economic illiterate. He actually believed that creating catastrophe fund would lower insurance rates. It did no such thing and could make Florida bankrupt if a series of natural disasters hit the state.
Meet Earnest O. Robbins II. He is a former Air Force Major General. He was appointed as Vice-President of the infrastructure and technology group of Parsons Corp. Robbins was placed of a $75 million contract to build a police academy in Baghdad. He ended up building (literally) a house of shit.
In a report released yesterday, inspectors found that the Baghdad Police College posed a health risk after feces and urine leaked through the ceilings of student barracks. The facility, part of which will need to be demolished, also featured floors that heaved inches off the ground and a room where water dripped so heavily that it was known as "the rain forest."
The academy was intended as a showcase for U.S. efforts to train Iraqi recruits who eventually are expected to take control of the nation's security from the U.S. military. But lawmakers said yesterday they feared it will become a symbol of a different sort.
Robbins is paid on a cost-plus contract. Meaning the more tax dollars he can suck out of the federal government for Parsons the more he makes. Congressman Chris Van Hollen posed this question to Parsons about his shitty contract work. Will Parsons Corp reinsurse the government?
Van Hollen is mumbling, "and say, given what has happened in this project . . . "
"No, sir, I will not," you snap.
". . . 'We will return the profits.' . . ."
"No, sir, I will not," you repeat.
Van Hollen said, "It just shows the contempt they have for us, for the taxpayer, for everything."
Parsons Corp only completed 20 of the 142 health centers they were contracted to build in Iraq. The government ran out of money to continue funding the project. The original contract was for $200 million. Their contracts with the Pentagon totaled $4 billion.
Maj. Gen. William H. McCoy Jr., commander of the corps' Gulf Region Division, said that the "loss of business for Parsons in Iraq may not be over [as] a broad review of Parsons' work in Iraq had turned up problems in sector after sector. According to news releases on the Parsons Web site, the company has received contracts worth as much as $4 billion in Iraq ... for building and refurbishing scores of police stations, border forts, fire stations, courthouses, prisons and Iraqi government buildings. 'We found overruns in almost every case,' General McCoy said.
Under the Bush administration, private contractors view the federal government as a free ATM machine. They take money out and never have to put any in.
Positive Health is running an online petition. Charlie Crist and the Florida legislature wish to make HIV treatment privatized. Positive Health wants to stop this.
In a move that threatens the continuity--and quality--of care for thousands of Floridians living with HIV/AIDS, Governor Charlie Crist’s 'Agency for Health Care Administration' (ACHA) is making drastic changes to a disease management (DM) initiative intended to improve the heath outcomes of Florida's HIV/AIDS Medicaid patients while reducing costs to the state. After eight years of successfully serving more than 8,000 patients in all 67 counties in Florida with AIDS Healthcare Foundation's 'Positive Healthcare-Florida' disease management program, Florida has announced it will shift disease management for this vulnerable, often hard to reach population to a private, for-profit vendor who will have to recreate a replacement HIV/AIDS DM program virtually from scratch with greatly reduced nursing staffing ratios.
I wrote previously about HB 7033. Florida is strapped for money to build new roads to meet growth demand. The problem is asphalt is made with petroleum. Fuel costs made road project costs have skyrocket. The Republicans in the House had the answer of having private contractors handle toll booths.
It is the intent of the Legislature to strengthen the state's transportation system by providing the department with innovative financing techniques, including, but not limited to, public-private partnerships, toll facility leases, and user fees. In response to increased congestion, population, and market demands...
Republicans in the legislature love this to help the pro-business lobby. I truly believe they are that jaded. The telecommunications service bill allowed phone companies to increase rates by up to 20 percent. That bill was wriiten by the lobbyists.
The bill also allows firms to hike tolls beyond inflationary limits as directed by bond documents and other covenants.
Republicans are never fiscally conservative when it comes to private contractors.
The only people who would think this is a good idea on merit are libertarians To understand what this you have to watch libertarian Megan McArdle argue to Jonathan Chait that raising the minimum wage will hurt poor people by shipping jobs to other copuntries. Then she argues that Democrats should support free trade. Such as outsourcing of jobs. McArdle tells Chait that the Democrats changing on these issues woulkd draw more libertarians. Chait correctly points out that Democrats won't win elections backing a libertarian platform.
A perfect example of the pickle the Florida Legislature have gotten themselves into with year-after-year tax cuts is their latest hair-brained scheme. HB 7033 proposes that paying private companies to run toll booths would actually raise revenue for transportation expenses.
Public-private transportation facilities.--The Legislature hereby finds and declares that there is a public need for rapid construction of safe and efficient transportation facilities for the purpose of travel within the state. It is the intent of the Legislature to strengthen the state's transportation system by providing the department with innovative financing techniques, including, but not limited to, public-private partnerships, toll facility leases, and user fees. In response to increased congestion, population, and market demands, and that it is in the public's interest to provide for the construction of additional safe, convenient, and economical transportation facilities.
More.
(a) With the exception of the Florida Turnpike System, the department may leas existing toll facilities through public-private partnerships. If the agreement for leasing an existing toll facility does not include provisions for additional capacity, the project and the provisions of the agreement must be approved by the Legislature. The public-private partnership agreement must ensure that the toll facility is properly operated, maintained, and renewed in accordance with department 99 standards.
(b) The department may develop new toll facilities or increase capacity on existing toll facilities through public-private partnerships. The public-private partnership agreement must ensure that the toll facility is properly operated, maintained, and renewed in accordance with department standards.
(c) The amount of toll or fare revenues shall be regulated by the department pursuant to s. 338.165(3). The regulations governing the future increase of toll or fare revenues shall be included in the public-private partnership agreement.
(d) The department shall include provisions in the public-private partnership agreement that ensure a portion of excess revenues from tolled projects are returned to the department over the life of the public-private partnership agreement. In 113 the case of a lease of an existing toll facility, the department shall receive a portion of funds upon closing on the agreements and shall also include provisions in the agreement to receive payment of a portion of excess revenues over the life of the public-private partnership.
Paying private companies to run toll booths and receiving only a "pontion" of the revenue does not sound like a money-making deal. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge would have been affected by this bill. The Herald Tribune reports that the bill appears to be dead this year. What is interesting is the bill would add more expenses to the Florida Department of Transportation.
A House bill (HB 7033) that would let existing toll facilities, like the Skyway Bridge, be leased to private companies. The companies would pay the state an upfront fee and then recoup their investment by raising tolls on the facilities over the term of a 50-year, or longer, lease. The legislation would also provide more incentives to private companies to build new toll facilities.
A bill that would lift the cap on bonds issued by the Florida Turnpike System from $4.5 billion to $9 billion. It would add another $900 million in turnpike projects to the DOT's five-year construction program.
This bill is pork that is meant to provide a financial windfall for private companies. I wrote before that outsourcing hasn't saved Florida money. That was never the point of HB 7033. It was just the sales pitch.
