McCrory Administration Officials Suppressed Insight Into Medicaid

[supernova]

By Rose Hoban

Soon after taking control in Raleigh in early 2013, people hired by Gov. Pat McCrory to run the Department of Health and Human Services made strategic edits to the departmental response to State Auditor Beth Wood’s audit of the North Carolina Medicaid program.

Documents obtained by North Carolina Health News through a public records request show that in January, incoming Sec. Aldona Wos and Medicaid head Carol Steckel eliminated detailed explanations of alleged high administrative costs, management problems and budget overruns in past years.

The resulting document accepts the criticism in Wood’s assessment wholesale and paints the health care program that covers 1.6 million North Carolinians as “broken.”

The criticisms contained in the audit have yielded talking points used by Wos, Steckel and McCrory for the past eight months as justification for turning down a federal expansion of the program under the Affordable Care Act and proposing to privatize the program.

More.. http://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2013/10/08/mccrory-administration-officials-suppressed-medicaid-data/

I got this link through NC Policy Watch, this report has been getting a lot of hits and the NCHN website may bump you, but keep trying.

[DURHAM D]

1. Disgusting.

I also find the campaign ad that runs all of the time really strange given that McCrory is not up for re-election until 2016.

http://www.wcnc.com/news/politics/McCrorys-new-ad-Whos-Paying-Not-him-223372931.html


I have never seen anything like this before.

[NCarolinawoman]

2. That ad is VERY strange.

It seems like he is not really talking to the people who are "supposedly" surrounding him. I don't think they are really in the room with him. I am not a techie of any sort, so I wonder how they actually made that ad. Some kind of photoshopping trickery.

[unc70]

3. I have a lot of problems with Beth Wood

Starting a little before the last election, Beth Woods seemed to be pushing the McCrory talking points far too vigorously for an elected Democrat in a technical department. Her audit of IT project management and costs bordered on professional malpractice.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10692334

I will work against Wood in every Democratic primary where she is a candidate.