02/06/2009 - FSSA slows down (Evansville Courier & Press)

FSSA slows down

Even before the administration of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels ever launched the privatized welfare application process in 2007, there were warning signs that there might be problems.

Other states had tried the same thing on a smaller scale and had less-than-satisfying results.

Texas, for example, has had problems with lost paperwork. And North Carolina finally canceled a five-year, $171 million deal with Affiliated Computer Services to create a new Medicaid billing system. The company had failed to make deadlines.

But the North Carolina program was tiny compared with Indiana, which signed a $1.16 billion, 10-year deal with a team of corporations to handle applications for food stamps, Medicare and other assistance programs. That team included the same Affiliated Computer Services that had trouble in North Carolina, and IBM.

So, even though Indiana's state-run application program was an error-prone disaster, there was reason to believe the privatized, automated program might be headed for trouble, too, and it was.

It proved to be punctuated with errors, as clients and their supporters complained that it is difficult to talk to an actual person.

The contractors had promised that real people would be available to talk to welfare clients if they were uncomfortable with applying via computer, but it hasn't worked out that way.

Our own view, from the start, was that expecting welfare recipients to rely on computers and automated telephones for communicating would be a poor substitute for talking face-to-face with a knowledgeable caseworker.

This newspaper has long advocated for both the privatization of certain government assets and the use of computerized automation for greater government efficiency where it will work. But the welfare application process never struck us as being such an area.

So, yes, the privatized Indiana program has been rolled out to 59 counties, including Vanderburgh, with 33 counties in central and northern Indiana yet to go.

Recently, state Rep. Suzanne Crouch, R-Evansville, filed a bill to stop further rollouts until the problems are fixed, and this week, Anne Murphy, the new secretary of the Family and Social Services Administration, announced she has halted the rollout to the other 33 counties until the problems can be fixed.

Good.