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.
Blunt wants this campaign to focus on the important issues facing Missourians, including health care reform and cap and trade legislation.
"We’re just going to be talking about how, in Washington, we need folks that are looking out for us, not the special interests," Carnahan told the Missourinet. "I think everybody who watches what’s going in D.C., right now, feels the way I do, and that is that Washington seems to have been taken over by the lobbyists and the special interests."