AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine Democrats say the LePage administration should have come forward sooner with news that a computer malfunction had resulted in up to 19,000 people receiving MaineCare services they weren’t eligible for.
In Saturday’s Democratic radio address, Rep. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston says the administration knew of the Department of Health and Human Services error in January, but didn’t tell legislators until this week.
Rotundo said officials weren’t forthcoming with the information even as legislators questioned the MaineCare numbers before the problems were made public.
She said Democrats want to move forward with improvements to the state’s health care system, but must have accurate information to do so.
DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew told lawmakers Friday that in retrospect, she should have made them aware of the problems earlier.
so,,, why is this headline partisan?
Because only the Democrats on the committee questioned the fact that she had withheld key information.
The Republicans on the committee told her what a great job she was doing.
Why didn’t Commissioner Mayhew tell the Legislature earlier about the “computer malfunction”? Did she have a reason? Is there a protocol for telling, timewise? Like ASAP? If so, then I guess she owes an explanation. Then let’s FIX THE COMPUTERS IN DHHS. THEN FIX THE PEOPLE WHO OPERATE THEM, as needed. Isn’t 20+ years of incompetence enough?
Lepage has complete support for Mayhew, Why? This is a sad man!
“DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew told lawmakers Friday that in retrospect, she should have made them aware of the problems earlier.” NO KIDDING! Go one step further and say, “I deserve to be fired” and maybe you will someday be accepted as someone who has potential to become an honest professional. The only reason you’re not fired right now is because you do and say whatever your despicable boss tells you. You two deserve each other, but the State of Maine can’t afford nor deserves either of you.
“Mayhew said she was told about the eligibility problems in late January but the scope of the problem wasn’t clear until she was briefed on its potential impact last week.”
Maybe you should focus your wrath on who put that system in.
So your strategy for governance is much the same as Mr. LePage and Mary’s, explain your own dishonesty and incompetence by looking to place blame on some indefinable past. Exactly how will that possibly solve things now? Deflect, deflect, deflect. Sorry Cliff we need to find honest and competent leadership as fast as possible. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like Mr. LePage is capable or willing to bring such leadership forward so I guess we’ll have to wait until November and do it on our own. “Next time” vote wisely.
Geez, my incompetence and dishonesty is not looking to place blame on some “indefinable past” as you put it. Let me define it for you. The problem started long before Lepage or Mayhew came to office and we all know what party was in power then-the same ones who got us into this mess of a program that owed 500 million to medical providers when Lepage came to office. All we know is that she knew there was a problem but not the extent of it until last week. Interesting you want to kill the messenger but then your bias is pretty evident.
“Your bias is pretty evident.” As is your’s Sir. Again, would you care to answer how your, Mary’s or Paul’s blame game solves anything today? If our current problems are to be resolved we don’t need deflections we need competency and honesty NOW (Actually last month would have been a real help…but as Mary points out here, that opportunity has passed us by). I suggest you set your own biases aside and start demanding for what’s needed NOW rather than protecting more of what may or may not have happened in the past.
With every tick of the clock November 6th gets closer.
If looking at the big picture makes me biased, so I am. And you aren’t blaming anyone? You know where this mess started. At least admit it.
This mess started with badly run government and TODAY it’s worse than ever because of even WORSE run government. It appears that your blind allegiance to the present government is preventing you from speaking what you really must know to be true. You can’t solve our current problems by ignoring the truth behind the incompetence and dishonesty we have now. If that’s what you want to do then I’d suggest that you trim a little off the edges of your “Big Picture” because you seem to possess only a small “Frame” of mind in which to place it.
Mayhew herself said they were told of the problem before the prior administration left, but the LePage folks dropped the ball.
She also admitted that it was corrected in just a few weeks — once they bothered to prioritize it!
She is only blaming her own team. Are you calling her a liar?
Do you see anyplace wher I called her a liar?
You are making claims that directly contradict Ms Mayhew’s testimony.
So you now want to pretend that claiming things Mayhew said have to be falsifications is not calling her a liar?
You did not use that exact word – but your claims are very, very clear and cannot possibly be true if Mayhew was not lying.
Please refer to the claim I am making. The quote I originally used was from the BDN (from a related article that same day).
Direct quote from one of your comments:
“The problem started long before Lepage or Mayhew came to office and we all know what party was in power then-the same ones who got us into this
mess”
… completely refuted by Ms Mayhew’s testimony.
Actually, I was referring to the whole mess called “MaineCare”. And yes, there has been computer system issues long before this administration.
Give it to him Peggy!!…………this is nothing but a crock of …. And aside from that, now he wants to lay off DHHS workers and restructure? MAKE him accountable for his and her less then honorable actions and mismanagement!!
Representative
Rotundo feels a need to outline the lack of Democratic concern when they had
the governor’s office and the legislature in their control. While on their watch there were all kinds of
problems with DHHS. Failure to pay their
bills in a timely manner and catastrophic failure of implementation of a new
computer system just to name a couple of problems they had.
I knew about the problems then because they told us. The problems are not a political thing, hiding them from the legislature is! The problems came about because the low bidder (a business, by the way) did a lousy job.
Hey genius. This problem did not exist until September of 2010 when the new system first went online.
The legislature doesn’t meet from summer through fall, so they would not be dealing with it until December when the new legislature was sworn in.
… and who was in charge when they reconvened?
Given that revisions to DHHS funding have been a focus point of the penguin ‘s administration… Why wasn’t this problem reported in a timely manner and why was the penguin’s budget plan voted on without this information…??? Also.. are all the R’s so afraid of the penguin that they party line vote to support whatever Adrienne Bennett says the penguin meant??? …. Goodby R’s next November …Who the heck elected these jokers??
smart, competent people won’t work for an arrogant bully like LePage.
“She said Democrats want to move forward with improvements to the state’s health care system, but must have accurate information to do so.”
I doubt that the state can afford much more of the dems “improvements”!
they sure can’t afford anymore of LePage’s lies and incompetence.
and I doubt if the state will withstand any more of the administrations “inaccurate information”. …….place the puzzle pieces together, and you get a picture…..
I DOUBT that the legislature can withstand much more misinformation! And I doubt that the state can withstand much more mismanagement and arrogance.
Sound like LePage and his flunkies wanted to cover up this blunder by dumping what was it? 65,000 Maine Care recipients saying we have to trim the fat because we are to easily allowing everyone to get benefits so let’s dump the most vulnerable when for all we know, this was due to a gross oversight which we now know was never reported when it was discovered. Sounds a bit like Wagging the Dog to me.
The Democrat’s only solution to fix anything for 30/40 years was to Bond money to cover the cost of their errors.. They Painted over the rot instead of fixing the problems in the State… Now they speak up when our Great Governor Paul LePage is doing and making the Hard choices.. Vile Bunch they are.
EveryThing that our Great Governor Paul LePage tries to fix, they stand in the way… because they know if it need to be fixed, then it was broken before our Great Governor Paul LePage to Office, which make’s them look like fools..Politicaly correct I am not, and refuse to allow dems to feel good for ruinning our once Great State of Maine… Get over it and stop trying to CYA’s
And………what about…..not telling the truth? Let’s talk about the GREAT Governor’s…..attempts on that? You, have nothing to say here, only, because you don’t really address the problem, you do what all repubs. do……blame the dems.
Last time I knew, blame is no solution to a problem,……it’s the cause of a problem. Our problem, according to your structure, should be to place blame……so…..who do we blame……..LEPAGE! the person who does not seek solutions, rather he invites chaos and confusion, hoping and threatening his way through………if you seek blame, then look into the mirror of LePage.
Save the Adjective,
There is nothing “Great” about him!
He ain’t Corn Flakes,
He’s a “Tea Flake” !
Simple solution – close DHHS
Dems should let this one go. The computer hasn’t work “perfectly” since it went online. And, yet, the political appointees were the Governor’s own. I think all Mainers are disgusted with DHHS’s computer and would love to trash it, but it would cost too much money to replace it.
So you are calling Mayhew a liar when she said the problem had been fixed with just a few weeks after the current administration bothered to start working on it (after having been told of it in September of 2010)?