Rewarding dysfunction

While the Medicaid billing fiasco continues to make headlines around the state, at least one Hancock County legislator with a direct hand in the mess has had little to say recently. Inquiring minds want to know: Where was Rep. Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, for the past two years while $56 million was being shoveled down the drain in a fruitless effort to make the billing system work properly? Answer: She was chairwoman of the Health and Human Services Committee, and had direct oversight responsibility for Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services, the profoundly dysfunctional state agency at the center of the billing meltdown.

The wasted $56 million is just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of health care providers have been underpaid for services rendered to Medicaid patients, or not paid at all, to the tune of $35 million. Some medical practices have shut down, while others have been forced to downsize. The ripple effect on Maine’s already fragile economy means fewer job opportunities for Maine people.

Two years ago, the nonpartisan Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability urged the Legislature to toughen up its oversight of the mess at DHHS, but was anyone at the Statehouse listening? Rep. Pingree appeared to be utterly clueless in her role as committee chairwoman. She patted the inept DHHS bureaucrats on the back for a job well done, and acted surprised at the recent announcement that the Baldacci administration is about to pull the plug on the system and start over again. A full transition to a new system could take three years or more, and who knows how many more millions of tax dollars.

Nobody at DHHS has been fired for incompetence, and Rep. Pingree has been promoted from committee chairwoman to Majority Leader.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Lawrence E. Lockman

Amherst