(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Montana's plan to hurt those already hurting – Daily Montanan [1] ['More From Author', 'February', 'Darrell Ehrlick'] Date: 2024-02-15 When I was a much younger reporter, I had an old sheriff who had been in law enforcement for what seemed like an eternity tell me that every sheriff has to build a jail. I came to learn the truth of his words — and that it didn’t just apply to sheriffs. All public elected officials want to look back, or point to a building and say, “See that? I did that,” as proof that they were just more than a placeholder in a long string of people with the same title. And so the leaders of our state have set about to leave a mark — a tangible change —to prove that after they were elected they did something. Sometimes, in that urge to do something, borne out of an odd mix of vanity and sincerity, they move beyond action into meddling — and that’s exactly what’s happening when it comes to revamping how the state helps those in crisis. In its attempt to help those Montanans who are struggling, the state is on the brink of hiring a company, Maximus, whose employees are also struggling. In the name of efficiency and stewardship, the State of Montana, led by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte and his Department of Public Health and Human Services Director Charlie Brereton, have decided that business, consolidation and streamlining — all wonderful squares on your bingo card of “run the state like a business” game — can do what nonprofit, social services agencies cannot: Make a one-size-fits-all agency for people who are struggling and vulnerable. There’s no empirical evidence that the state has produced that demonstrates social service agencies throughout the state, both urban and rural, are failing. And the only public outcry lately about how lesser advantaged Montana residents are treated has come because of the way the state has bungled the Medicaid unwinding. The reason the state has decided to outsource some of its public assistance programs, things like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, is because it claims that it’s a lot of work to manage and oversee a bunch of agencies with far-reaching missions in spread out Montana places. Too much work. It would just seem to figure that guys like Brereton and Gianforte would get exhausted by how big this state is. Brereton’s bio includes three years as a policy staffer from Washington D.C., with zero experience managing health and human service organizations. Now, he finds himself managing the state’s largest department. That’s as much the fault of Brereton’s boss for giving such an expansive job to him. And,Montana is immense and spread out when compared to where Gianforte moved from — New Jersey. However, Brereton’s abdication is a matter of Montana not wanting to do the most basic task of government — helping those who are vulnerable. This switch to a private company, Maximus, based in Virginia, not so far away from Brereton’s old stomping grounds of Washington, D.C., is because it was too much work for the state to have to deal with all these diverse people — and Montana is so big. And let’s talk about Maximus — the company which the state has announced that it is likely going to work with. Maximus workers have been protesting, including walking out of their jobs, because of poor pay and working conditions. In other words, those helping the poor and needy of Montana are poor and needy themselves. And the Maximus model seems to be helping people at a distance — through call centers instead of “boots on the ground” (see, another business-bingo card catchphrase). It probably comes as a sort of a shock to Gianforte, a man who made millions off a computer-based call centers, but it’s hard to put a roof over someone’s head via a call center. And you can’t fill a hungry belly with a headset. Many of us are still reeling from the horrible call-center performance that caught the attention of the federal government for Medicaid, so it’s about time for us to wonder: Really, another call center? Think about it: When was the last time you called a call-center and recounted later what a great experience it was? Me neither. A simple internet search for news stories about Maximus demonstrates plenty of reasons to be suspicious about the state’s new business partner. Maximus has a breathtakingly broad range of complaints in a variety of states recently. In July of last year, the company reported that ransomware had breached the data of more than 600,000 Medicare recipients. That number continued to grow as more reporting was done about the data breach. For example, Indiana alone estimated that more than 740,000 Hoosier State residents’ data was breached. In August, workers from Maximus marched on Washington, D.C., as part of calling attention to Maximus’ hiring practices, which they said promoted racial and gender inequities. In Mississippi, workers for Maximus said they had to unionize because reports and complaints of wage theft topped $100 million. Last week, similar “customer support centers” in New York announced that 48 Maximus staff members were being laid off in New York. Keep in mind those are exactly the kind of centers that Montana will be getting. I guess we now know what happens when needy, vulnerable people meet the need for a slightly healthier bottom line. A union representing some Maximus workers filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the company of unfair tactics after workers decided to strike for better labor conditions. In Florida, some workers at Maximus who were engaged in a strike say they were fired for speaking publicly about poor working conditions. And by the way, as reporting unfolded about that data breach and it attracted more and more attention, that data breach grew to as many as 8 million. It’s not just time to rethink handing a company that has had this many problems in this many states in just the past two years, it’s time to rethink the state’s critical role at protecting the most at-risk Montanans. The state hasn’t demonstrated our social services network is failing; in fact, those same providers and professionals have demonstrated they can survive a pandemic and help people on a frazzled shoe-string budget. The only thing broken with our social service network is the notion that our Montana-based services have failed. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/02/15/montanas-plan-to-hurt-those-already-hurting/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/