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| She Looks Scared, She SHOULD BE! |
EXCERPT: The Redesign Committee worked for several years, formed subcommittees focused on certain issues, and held many stakeholder meetings. Family Care was born as a result. It was in Governor Thompson’s 1999-2001 budget proposal, the product of several years of study and the development of consensus among stakeholders.
But when you are Scott Walker, who needs consensus?
Walker’s redesign proposal would eliminate some important aspects of the program. First, it would eliminate the IRIS ( I Respect, I Self-direct) program, which allows participants to self-manage their own budget for their care, providing the widest latitude to create an individual program within a budget. Second, it would replace the Managed Care Organizations that operate in various districts to run the program. It would restrict participation in Family Care only to those MCOS that can operate on a statewide basis. This is NONE of the current MCOs. To operate statewide, an MCO would have to have significant capital, the kind that only large insurance programs have.Third, it transfers oversight of the MCOs to the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance instead of the Division of Health Services. Fourth, it provides a means to eliminate the current Aging and Disability Resource Centers that provide help on a local basis to seniors and disabled individuals, by allowing this service to be contracted out. There are numerous other changes proposed that are too many to go into here.
You might ask, why the changes? Well, when you are Scott Walker, why not? He must have a good reason. Like, providing big business for out of state insurance companies and putting Wisconsin MCOs out of business. Reducing the size of government by eliminating the ADRCs. Or something like that. But definitely not improving services for elderly and disabled people. That is nowhere in this equation, or else he would have had them at the table in making the decision.
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