Texas Democratic Party: Moving Texas Forward

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) is yet another state agency that has been plagued by scandal resulting from the privatization schemes and cronyism that are Rick Perry’s trademark.

From an offshore call center privatization scheme that denied  thousands of Texas children health care coverage under CHIP, to recent reports about massive bureaucratic backlogs in providing critical assistance to Texas families, Perry’s HHSC appointees have overseen policies that have needlessly put Texans at risk and squandered millions of tax dollars, despite warnings that the HHSC plans could fail.

• In 2003, Perry’s handpicked HHSC appointees pushed for a plan that outsourced CHIP enrollment to an offshore call center in Bermuda, which cost tax payers nearly $900 million and caused thousands of eligible families to be dropped from the Children’s Health Insurance Program. (Source: The Texas Observer)

• Another HHSC privatization scheme has caused a massive backlog in processing food stamp applications for thousands of Texas families. HHSC’s privatized system has failed to process applications from 55,276 Texans within the 30 day period required by law, including “some who don’t have money for rent or food and under state law are supposed to be processed as ‘expedited’ cases within 24 hours.” (Source: Dallas Morning News)

• After HHSC outsourced the state’s CHIP and Medicaid enrollment process to its offshore cronies, many experienced state eligibility workers were let go and forced to find new jobs. With a pending class-action lawsuit caused by HHSC’s inability to provide basic services to Texans, HHSC is now scrambling to hire workers with less experience to work longer shifts with heavier workloads as a result of the fallout from its failed privatization experiment. (Source: Austin American-Statesman)

HHSC’s failed $900 million outsourcing experiment wasted tax dollars, caused unprecedented backlogs and left thousands of Texans without critically needed services. As long as they are guided by Perry appointees and failed policies adopted under Republican rule, Texans will have to deal with state agency scandals like those that have haunted Texans who rely on HHSC.

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To read more about Republican mismanagement, corruption, and  pay-to-play politics, visit the TDP’s “Top Ten State Agency Scandals” campaign by clicking here.