It is more than beginning to look a lot like retaliation and harassment, both of which are prohibited by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
One of the questions that has to be asked now is whether Abercrombie's anti-Medicaid actions have become sufficiently blatant that our major Honolulu media will break their years-old black-out on news concerning Rafael.
Years ago he was told the insurance companies threatened to pull their media advertising if any story involving Rafael was run. When Rafael ran for Congress in 2010, neither major newspaper nor any of the TV stations mentioned it when he came in third.
The Honolulu media ran a single story in seven months concerning SB 1274. It was a television piece that aired late at night, and was a major embarrassment for Unitedhealth (their attorney told the reporter Unitedhealth was spending too much money on legal fees).
As a result, more than a quarter million people are unaware they are losing major civil rights on January 1.
What is happening now in Hawaii is symptomatic of the political power wielded by these publicly traded Medicaid contractors. The state first "disables itself", in del Castillo's words, by decimating the employment infrastructure that supported the previous fee-for-service Medicaid program. The contractors are being paid public funds to provide "managed care", so state employees become redundant.
The Medicaid contractors eventually become "too big" to fail; or more accurately, "too big to take down for criminal activity." That can be the only explanation for why companies caught stealing children's Medicaid money not only get new contracts, but get premium raises in the states from which they have embezzled funds.
State contracts to provide Medicaid services to the local disability community are extremely lucrative. They are calculated on a monthly per person basis, depending on the "risk" of the company incurring significant charges for that individual. Unitedhealth is likely receiving somewhere between $12,000 and $27,000 per month for each of Rafael's clients.
These so called "abd" contracts ("aged, blind and disabled") have an enormous impact on shareholder profits. In just under three years, Unitedhealth's Medicaid membership increased about 50%, while Medicaid revenues were up 135%, and net quarterly earnings up 318% (that is not a typo).
At least six Federal civil rights investigations have been opened in Hawaii since February 2010. The four children represented were all facing cuts in home nursing services. Between the ages of four and ten, all are medically fragile, to varying degrees technology dependent, none can eat by mouth, one is completely immobile, none of the others can walk by themselves, and three are too medically fragile to attend school with other children.
You see, our nation has a most enlightened policy towards children with disabilities. Medicaid law gives children (under 21) a legal right to services prescribed as "medically necessary" by their doctor or other provider. These become civil rights when those services involve ensuring that children can live at home with their families.
These legal and civil rights are a mandated part of any state's Medicaid program. They are expensive and they are comprehensive. The disability population may only represent twenty-eight percent of all Medicaid beneficiaries, but are allocated two-thirds of the national budget. Less than fourteen percent of the budget is spent on healthy, working age adults.
It is called the Early Periodic Screening, Detection & Treatment program, or EPSDT. While federal Medicaid regulations also mandate family education about EPSDT, the unfortunate truth is that most states are violating those regulations. Few families know what is available to them.
It is relatively easy to embezzle public money intended to provide services for children with disabilities. The kids themselves are frequently not in a position to speak up on their own behalf, and parents are often in a state of "shell shock" from caring for a child in danger of dying 24/7.
Unitedhealth, Wellcare and the state of Hawaii Department of Human Services Medicaid division have been under some sort of federal scrutiny for violating the rights of people with disabilities almost continuously since September 2009. That is less than six months after they started their $100 million per month contract with the state. In March 2010, legislative leaders were caught on tape reacting to sworn testimony that the death rate among enrollees jumped 36% in the first twelve months.
The public in Hawaii has heard nothing of any investigation into that horrendous assertion. Far more interesting, the relatively unknown governor of Hawaii is accomplishing "a de facto move toward the block-granting of Medicaid", exactly as predicted by Simon Lazarus of the National Senior Citizen Law enter three months ago.
One of the questions that has to be asked now is whether Abercrombie's anti-Medicaid actions have become sufficiently blatant that our major Honolulu media will break their years-old black-out on news concerning Rafael.
Years ago he was told the insurance companies threatened to pull their media advertising if any story involving Rafael was run. When Rafael ran for Congress in 2010, neither major newspaper nor any of the TV stations mentioned it when he came in third.
The Honolulu media ran a single story in seven months concerning SB 1274. It was a television piece that aired late at night, and was a major embarrassment for Unitedhealth (their attorney told the reporter Unitedhealth was spending too much money on legal fees).
What is happening now in Hawaii is symptomatic of the political power wielded by these publicly traded Medicaid contractors. The state first "disables itself", in del Castillo's words, by decimating the employment infrastructure that supported the previous fee-for-service Medicaid program. The contractors are being paid public funds to provide "managed care", so state employees become redundant.
The Medicaid contractors eventually become "too big" to fail; or more accurately, "too big to take down for criminal activity." That can be the only explanation for why companies caught stealing children's Medicaid money not only get new contracts, but get premium raises in the states from which they have embezzled funds.
State contracts to provide Medicaid services to the local disability community are extremely lucrative. They are calculated on a monthly per person basis, depending on the "risk" of the company incurring significant charges for that individual. Unitedhealth is likely receiving somewhere between $12,000 and $27,000 per month for each of Rafael's clients.
These so called "abd" contracts ("aged, blind and disabled") have an enormous impact on shareholder profits. In just under three years, Unitedhealth's Medicaid membership increased about 50%, while Medicaid revenues were up 135%, and net quarterly earnings up 318% (that is not a typo).
At least six Federal civil rights investigations have been opened in Hawaii since February 2010. The four children represented were all facing cuts in home nursing services. Between the ages of four and ten, all are medically fragile, to varying degrees technology dependent, none can eat by mouth, one is completely immobile, none of the others can walk by themselves, and three are too medically fragile to attend school with other children.
You see, our nation has a most enlightened policy towards children with disabilities. Medicaid law gives children (under 21) a legal right to services prescribed as "medically necessary" by their doctor or other provider. These become civil rights when those services involve ensuring that children can live at home with their families.
These legal and civil rights are a mandated part of any state's Medicaid program. They are expensive and they are comprehensive. The disability population may only represent twenty-eight percent of all Medicaid beneficiaries, but are allocated two-thirds of the national budget. Less than fourteen percent of the budget is spent on healthy, working age adults.
It is called the Early Periodic Screening, Detection & Treatment program, or EPSDT. While federal Medicaid regulations also mandate family education about EPSDT, the unfortunate truth is that most states are violating those regulations. Few families know what is available to them.
It is relatively easy to embezzle public money intended to provide services for children with disabilities. The kids themselves are frequently not in a position to speak up on their own behalf, and parents are often in a state of "shell shock" from caring for a child in danger of dying 24/7.
Unitedhealth, Wellcare and the state of Hawaii Department of Human Services Medicaid division have been under some sort of federal scrutiny for violating the rights of people with disabilities almost continuously since September 2009. That is less than six months after they started their $100 million per month contract with the state. In March 2010, legislative leaders were caught on tape reacting to sworn testimony that the death rate among enrollees jumped 36% in the first twelve months.
The public in Hawaii has heard nothing of any investigation into that horrendous assertion. Far more interesting, the relatively unknown governor of Hawaii is accomplishing "a de facto move toward the block-granting of Medicaid", exactly as predicted by Simon Lazarus of the National Senior Citizen Law enter three months ago.
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