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Missourinet

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Sen. Blunt pushes for more information on federal health care application processing centers

June 26, 2014 By Mike Lear

Missouri’s junior senator says he’s still waiting for answers, even after getting a reply to his inquiry about the workload at centers processing federal healthcare plan applications. Whistleblowers say there are too many employees and not enough work at centers managed by Serco in Wentzville and elsewhere in the country that are supposed to process paper applications to the federal health care system.

Senator Roy Blunt (R) and other lawmakers including Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R) sent letters to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services asking about the claims. Blunt says after a long delay he finally got a letter in response, that he says was “vague,” and he wants something better.

“I got a non-answer answer,” says Blunt of the letter he received from Marilyn Tavenner, Administrator with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“Did you really tell them to refresh their computer every ten minutes so it would look like they’re doing something,” Blunt asks of the working conditions at the Serco facilities. “Did you really bring library books and board games to work so that the people that taxpayers were paying would have something to do? Those are pretty simple ‘yes or no’ questions and I’d like some ‘yeses’ or ‘nos’ to those questions.”

The 1.25-billion dollar federal contract includes more than 3,000 employees. A reported 600 of those are at Wentzville.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Affordable Care Act, Blaine Luetkemeyer, federal healthcare reform, Obamacare, Roy Blunt, Wentzville

MO House Speaker says VA problems support argument against Medicaid expansion (AUDIO)

June 20, 2014 By Mike Lear

The Republican Speaker of the Missouri House says recent problems with the Veterans Health Administration support the stance his caucus has taken against Medicaid expansion. Tim Jones (R-Eureka) has been opposed to using federal dollars to expand eligibility for that program in Missouri since Governor Jay Nixon (D) raised the issue in late 2012.

House Speaker Tim Jones (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Speaker Tim Jones (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

He says issues that have come to light  – veterans needing care being on secret waiting lists, some veterans dying while waiting for care, and records being falsified to reflect shorter wait times than actually experienced – illustrate the problems of having government-run a healthcare system.

“We actually look extremely smart and wise in not expanding Medicaid up to this point,” says Jones.

“The VA healthcare system, the federal Obamacare law and state Medicaid systems – the commonality is they’re all run by a form of the government,” says Jones. “The Medicaid system has now got the heavy hand of the federal government trying to use the carrot-and-stick approach of using the federal bill to expand the state systems.”

“We cannot put our heads in the sand and ignore potential similarities and analogies that can be drawn between the federal government running one massive national healthcare system on one hand versus another,” he adds.

Jones says Medicaid must be reformed rather than just have millions more in tax dollars be applied to the current system.

Medicaid expansion is an issue many Democrats running this year for state legislative seats will focus on.

AUDIO:  Jones says running on Medicaid expansion in this year’s campaigns would be a mistake

Filed Under: News, Politics / Govt Tagged With: Affordable Care Act, federal healthcare reform, Jay Nixon, Medicaid expansion, Obamacare, Tim Jones

Hospital Association VP says defunding healthcare reform could hurt its members

September 23, 2013 By Mike Lear

The Missouri Hospital Association says if the federal healthcare reform law is defunded, it will have a drastic impact on hospitals in the state and nationwide.

The House has passed a resolution that would fund the government through December but would pull funding from the president’s healthcare reform plan.

Missouri Hospital Association Vice President Dave Dillon says he understands what Republicans in the House want to do, but says they must remember that the program will cut money to hospitals to pay for the uninsured in anticipation that the money they propose pulling would result in more people with insurance.

“All of those payment cuts are going into place no matter whether the federal government defunds the increases in the insured population. So, what we would see would be over the course of ten years $4-billion in cuts without any corresponding increase in the people who can pay for care.”

Dillon says if Republicans really want to stop the plan alternately called “The Affordable Care Act,” or “Obamacare,” it will require some tough sells.

“It would be very difficult to pass a law that would rescind the ability of individuals to stay on their parents plans until they’re 26 years old. It would be very difficult and unpopular to rescind the extension of insurance without regard to preexisting conditions and without lifetime limits. Those things would be absolutely make or break for the insurance industry.”

Senator Claire McCaskill says the Senate will vote to restore funding to federal healthcare reform and send the resolution back to the House. The situation must be resolved by Monday, the first day of the federal fiscal year, or a shutdown to federal programs and services could result.

Filed Under: Health / Medicine, News, Politics / Govt Tagged With: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, healthcare reform, Obamacare



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