Ken Kusmer, writing for the Associated Press, has an article about the welfare eligibility process that’s emerging from the failed privatization efforts with ACS/IBM.
The Family and Social Services Administration said it has begun implementing what it’s calling a hybrid welfare intake system, involving caseworkers and some automation, in 10 southwestern Indiana counties. It follows the agency’s aborted bid to turn over highly automated welfare intake to private vendors – a plan designed to replace an outdated, paper-based casework system – that remains in 33 counties.
FSSA said the hybrid rollout began last week with phone calls to vendor-run call centers being rerouted to local welfare offices. It continued Monday with 20 state and contract caseworkers moving from the call centers to the 10 counties.
The article mentions one person (probably representative of a lot of people) who was frustrated at having to start anew under the new system. It also mentions Rep. Riecken’s bill (HB 1003 I think) that would prevent outsourcing eligibility functions.
I give Gov. Daniels and FSSA a lot of crap for implementing a system that denies welfare benefits to otherwise eligible people. I have suggested, and I don’t think I’m wrong, that making people struggle with the process is a way of limiting a program with which the Daniels administration disagrees or at least about which it is not enthusiastic. That said, there is a real need to weed out those who don’t have a real need.
My unscientific sample of collection defendants has a remarkable number of people seeking disability benefits from the federal government. One person I know who works with the poor described disability as the Holy Grail for some of these folks. There are a high number of people, able bodied to my untrained eye, claiming to suffer from a combination of bipolar disease and back problems. I’ll go so far as to say I think a fair number of them are full of shit. So, the screening is necessary – but it shouldn’t be so onerous as to deny benefits to those who are truly in need. Easier said than done, I guess.
Do disability claims go through FSSA? I thought that Social Security handled Medicare and disability claims?
If I’m not mistaken, some of the regional and local “welfare” offices shut down or were cut down to skeleton crews. Will those offices reopen/be restaffed? I think that more than 20 workers were removed/transferred under the Daniels/Roob failed scheme.