If you care about children, Medicaid and the economy, you won’t be voting for John Stephen for the Executive Council. Mr. Stephen was head of DHHS when extreme child abuse was taking place at the Youth Detention Center (YDC) and in other state youth facilities. The taxpayers are now on the hook for damages from the abuse the took place at the YDC when Mr Stephen was in charge of DHHS. He was also head of DHHS when he managed to get the State to give a no-bid contract to Maximus Inc. Ultimately, this decision would force him to resign.
“Maximus Inc., a publicly traded company based in Virginia, proposed that its subcontractor, Sellers, Feinberg and Associates, a smaller Philadelphia consultancy, apply for such a waiver in a letter to state HHS Commissioner John Stephen. Under the proposal, the consultants would get some portion of the state’s savings, though not necessarily the 15 percent contingency Maximus is getting under its existing contract.“
“That is sick,” said the late Dr Squires, then-president of the Concord-based Endowment for Health. “The more they cut, the more they make?”
“HHS Commissioner Stephen called the proposal “an unacceptable deal” when asked about it after a 6/3/04 forum in Concord on Medicaid modernization. But when asked if HHS was negotiating another deal with the company, Stephen pointedly walked away without answering the question.”
David Vicinanzo, who is suing the State on behalf of David Meehan and other victims of YDC abuse, has given thousands to Mr Stephen’s campaigns.
The taxpayers are now paying for the horrendous decisions and cover-ups that happened under Mr. Stephen’s leadership of DHHS – to the tune of over $160 million for YDC abuse in addition to millions for Medicaid and Managed Care fraud.
Others prepared the above-noted talking points and requested that I “run with it,” but I’d like to finish with some of my own thoughts.
The first one is that one should consider WHY Councilors Wheeler and Kenney have endorsed Mr Stephen. Could it be that they don’t want an outsider barging in on their inner circle? I think of Nashua City Hall people seeing Laurie Ortolano approaching the building and then quickly pulling down the shades and turning off the lights.
Remember what Einstein said about repeating the same behavior and expecting different results. If you, the voter, want to see positive change in the level of oversight of multimillion dollar contracts, how the most vulnerable people in state custody are treated, judgeships and cabinet appointments on merit rather than political favors, electing Mr Stephen is clearly NOT part of the solution. And most of us have heard before that not being part of the solution equals being part of the problem.
Ask the nurses you know who are worth their salt. They will tell you that troubleshooting was part of their training. Nurse Terese has diagnosed the problem. Let’s elect her to implement the solution.
