Rumor has it that the NH Executive Council may be voting on extending the current Medicaid Expansion (aka, BradleyCare) tomorrow for the computer systems. This in the backlight that the budget was vetoed? This from NH Business Review (reformatted, emphasis mine):
While the House and the Senate are embroiled in a budget standoff, the state Department of Health and Human Services is asking the Governor and Executive Council for permission to spend another $25 million on the state’s troubled contract with Xerox, to implement and run the state’s Medicaid computer information system.
The proposed increase, scheduled to be voted on Wednesday, would cover three years and cost the state more than $6 million, since the federal government generally picks up four-fifths of the tab. It would be used to implement the continued Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, as well as the furtherance of the state’s Medicaid managed care program – even though legislature approval of either program, through the end of fiscal 2017, is being voted on Wednesday, within the budget, which is expected to be vetoed by Governor Maggie Hassan.
…This amendment – the ninth since the contract was signed in 2005 – brings the total price tag to $145 million, some $85 million more than the $60 million original bid awarded, which beat out the state’s previous vendor, Hewlett Packard, by $10 million. The system, which was suppose to start in 2007, actually went on line in April 2013, and has yet to be certified by the federal government.
“Wasn’t the lower operating costs of the vendor the primary reason it was chosen over other bidders?” Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, NH-02, asked NH DHHS Commissioner Nick Toumpas in an email. “If so, how can you be sure that increasing the operating costs now, post-contract, is still consistent with the original award decision? Shouldn’t the vendor be held to their original operating bid?”
Sources say that several Republican councilors are leaning toward tabling the vote.
Well “several” means more than two, right? But here’s the thing – if the NH GOP Platform says FOR smaller government, if it says LESS intrusive government, if it says NO! to Obamacare (which includes Medicaid Expansion), here’s a perfect time to put a stake in its heart. Here is the time to make that happen. No computer system, no expansion of government.
So, what will they do? Will they just kill it? I think they should – after all, with all the bad money adding up with such a severe overrun, I can hear NH State Senators Morse and Bradley (among others) saying “Hey, we HAVE to vote to keep Medicaid Expansion – look how much we’ve already PAID for it!”
Trust me – keep it and it will be the Federal “gift” that will keep on sucking. And sucking. And sucking more and more $$ from the budget. You know, the Santa Claus Syndrome. And those in the know already know this – and won’t tell you that costs have already exploded. And just WAIT until that concussion wave hits the budget – you think that DHHS is crying for more money NOW? In a couple of years, today’s sniveling will look like a medicine dropper compared to the fire hose it will soon be.
BTW: I say to make Xerox live up to its contract. Source code? Trust me, if the vendor is changed, that source code may not be used, ever. Xerox knows it – it’s a throw away with the size of the project. After all, software engineers like doing their OWN code – not somebody else’s.
