Hochul’s home-care ‘repair’ may not be corrupt — but – Latest News
Something rotten is certainly taking place in Albany, although whether or not Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “reform” of the state’s $11 billion home-care program was corrupt, or just disastrously bungled, stays to be seen.
The feds will search for corruption now that a newly surfaced e-mail provides fuel to the fire of doable bid-rigging because the gov centralized oversight of the Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program, which pays members of the family to take care of mostly-elderly disabled Medicaid recipients at home.
The smoking gun e-mail — obtained through a FOIL request by Empire Center watchdogs — confirms that state officers have been involved with reps for Public Partnership LLC, or PPL, weeks earlier than lawmakers even approved bidding on managing the home-care program, and long earlier than PPL gained the five-year, $1 billion contract to supervise CDPAP.
Hochul launched a reform drive years in the past, insisting the state was burning hundreds of thousands on fraud as 600-plus intermediaries oversaw 400,000 home-care employees, a quantity that had skyrocketed in recent times.
It sure seems to be just like the gov all the time supposed to put PPL in charge: The company’s identify even confirmed in draft laws to create the new system.
Even if some sincere clarification surfaces for all that, the bigger situation is that Hochul’s “reforms” have but to provide even a trace of the promised financial savings — but may quickly drastically enhance outlays.
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That’s as a result of the revamp has opened to door for powerhouse SEIU 1199 to show these 400,000 home-care aides into union members; in exchange for its huge windfall in dues, 1199 will certainly instantly begin pushing for pay hikes and different advantages for them.
The gov’s supposed cost-containment plan has morphed into a $200 million reward to the union and certain price explosions.
If it’s not really corrupt, it not less than reeks of utter incompetence.
