Check these out:
AFSCME Privatization Update
DabJab~news.entertainment.politics
Accenture's News Release in June 2005
Statesman blog
"It's Hell to be Poor in Texas"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Texas State Capitol
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
An employee of the "Food Stamp" office in Texas .... writing about the system that is crumbling from the inside and the outside, all in the name of Politics. **I'm writing this as a private citizen of the State of Texas--I do not claim to represent the opinions of HHSC**
Quotable Quotes
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.
Woodrow Wilson28th president of US (1856 - 1924)
Woodrow Wilson28th president of US (1856 - 1924)
Texas State Capitol
Contributors
Creative Commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Popular Posts
News Links
Texas State Government Links
Texas Political Blogs
Links
- Email Me!
- Wanna join the Support Group? Click Here
- HHSC EZBoard-New!
- HHSC Survivalist
- Texas State Employees Union
- "Texas Access Alliance" Blog Search
- "Accenture" Blog Search
- "Albert Hawkins" News Search
- "HHSC" Blog Search
- "HHSC" News Search
- FNS Contact Info
- Strayhorn's Audit of HHSC
- Fed Audit of HHSC (PDF File)
- State Hotline Numbers
Blog Archive
-
▼
2006
(168)
-
▼
June
(21)
- Layoffs in San Antonio
- Lead times
- MAXIMUS Provides Preliminary Third Quarter Results...
- Comments
- Some various sites .....
- Sorry for lack of posts....
- Wanted to expand on something.....
- Falling completely apart
- Letter to the Editor (2)
- Letter to the Editor (1)
- Spin, of course.
- Opinion from Corpus Christi Caller-Times
- Article from Harlingen Valley Morning Star
- rumor has it
- Athens Call Center News
- A couple of articles
- New Article out of San Antonio
- interesting
- Wrong fax number actually reported in January? Se...
- IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM TEXAS STATE EMPLOYEES UNION
- Needy Texans' Applications faxed into "Black Hole"
-
▼
June
(21)
6 comments:
Rocky Road for Children's Health Care
http://www.cppp.org/research.php?aid=534&cid=3&scid=7
This past November, the state began changing the way Texans enroll in public services. From the beginning the system has been troubled, and children's health care has been especially hard hit. The number of kids receiving health care through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program has dropped by over 108,000 since the new contractor took over.
DABJAB got my dander up. here's what I gave him as a comment on his HHSC post:
“I appreciate the feedback from many of our HHSC workers from across Texas. It does make me wonder, though, how HHSC staff from Dallas, Houston or San Antonio can talk first hand about the trials of privatization from their government-run counties.”
I see mostly HHSC folks talking first hand about the problems they are facing AS A RESULT OF “the trials of privatization” from experiences in their offices. Understaffed due to the frenzy of workers that left for greener pastures after being told they would not have job, we are the one’s left to assess problems caused by the frantic implementation of a system that couldn’t work as promised, which we all knew. We are the one’s left explaining to irate clients that we can try to fix their dilemma, it will just take some time, as it was not brought to our attention until the TAA decided they couldn’t work with them, and sent a lot of the work back to the original offices, a lot didn’t come back, some apparently got “warehoused,” so we are doing Medicaid applications that should have been done two to three months ago. All this along with our regular work, which has also multiplied exponentially as the workers have jumped ship.
“Only a handful of people should know of the daily trials -- the state workers in Austin and Hayes counties. Everyone else who has information either gets it from hearing anecdotal evidence from disgruntled workers or reading newspapers sourced from disgruntled workers.”
“Disgruntled workers” being the operative phrase here. “Anecdotal Evidence” my butt. Why are they disgruntled….Hmmm, I left work early today…..6:30. I have a newborn grandchild in the hospital an hour away, but can only see her on the weekends, because I don’t want to overload the other three workers in my office and risk losing any more of them, so we stay and finish cases after hours so we can keep some semblance of regulation to our workload. I know, this is my choice, but I shouldn’t have to make a choice. Apparently you have not been in the trenches for too long, and you don’t realize, especially now, with all of the new TIERS and ARTS workers, plus all of the interagency moves, that word travels fast in HHSC. Good news, bad news, any news, it hits the airways and is broadcast throughout the agency.
“It is cause for concern when HHSC employees are able to post their smarmy remarks on blogs during business hours. I thought they were swamped because of the additional workload caused by Accenture? I guess the blighted person standing in line can wait for HHSC workers to finish penning their rubbish before being helped.”
I see one comment in your blog that was posted during reg business hours, and probably took all of 38 seconds to pound out. As for the other blogs on the subject, some are tagged with the time on comments, but no date, so we can’t be sure if it was a Saturday or a Sunday. We do get breaks, though; the state hasn’t taken that away from us yet. 15 minutes of reading “rubbish” is possibly relaxing to some.
“I'm not saying that problems do not exist or that there will not continue to be growing pains as this process is refined and implemented. I am saying that, instead of focusing on what country a company is incorporated in, we should focus on the goal of helping Texans in the most effective way possible.”
Yes, we should focus on helping Texans in the most efficient way possible, which had been up to this point, having them come to their local offices and apply, be interviewed, and be able to speak to someone about any problems or issues that they have. I guess having a good enough standing with the Federal Govt. to get enhanced funding doesn’t warrant the term “efficient”
“Certainly, that is not happening in the PILOT area. But that is why it is considered the pilot area. This is the time to work out all the kinks and bugs in the system before rolling the product out into other counties. When the roll out will continue depends upon many things most obviously whether the business processes have been refined to scale.”
That is also why the Federal Government put the brakes on the whole plan until ALL of the kinks and bugs were worked out, which doesn’t seem to be happening, as I haven’t heard of any proposed revision to the roll out schedule yet. I think, and I’m just guessing here, that the roll out would depend on TAA and Mr. Hawkins finally complying with what the Feds want. After all, it is their money too.
“In conclusion, a personal friend applied for pregnancy benefits over the phone and was extremely happy with the convenience of the process. I certainly hope more Texans will also be able to benefit from this streamlining soon.”
We aren’t in a roll out county, and we have had people being certified by phone for pregnancy Medicaid for a long time, no problems. I guess it depends where the application is processed, in a local office, in a call center or in a warehouse in Seattle. I too, hope more Texans will be able to benefit from the system than have been able to so far.
Let's see if he posts it....
Just chalk it up to " He or she doesn't know anything about what we do. Only what the paper or hhsc feeds them. We know we are making a difference and that is all that matters at this point. F the rest of the world. just keep helping the ones that need it.
I replied also....and just in case he/she/it didn't post it, I put my response on my blog!
I don't understand why you give this person space/time to spew his/her swill. This neocon only wants to dismiss and demean the good people who are doing the work. When he/she says "remains to be seen if Accenture can correct years of departmental corruption,mismanagement and long lines for clients" that view right there tells me where he's coming from and it is purely political.
But worker, isn't it all political? Why do like the purely liberal sites do or the purely right wing sites do and only show what's going on on THEIR side?
I'm equal opportunity - and the sad fact is that the perception that DabJab has is truly what the "common folk" in Texas have. They think big business does everything right- because THEY work in big business and are invested in big business. As I've mentioned before, many who have no idea what we do think we have fat cat high paying easy jobs. We don't.
Sometimes stepping outside of the box to educate someone is worth it in the end.
Post a Comment