Our View

Our View

When even the minimal e_ort is asking too much

Correct us if we’re wrong but what justification can our politicians and bureaucrats give by spending up to $4.3 million over the next two years to continue mollycoddling the half million “poor” Arkansans apparently unable to take it upon themselves to get their own required proof-of-coverage forms to file along with their taxes?

Since when do the hard-working taxpayers, who have enough good common sense to get their own tax forms, either by going to their local post office or by downloading them, be called upon to subsidize this ridiculous government service for the state’s Medicaid recipients?

For all those who are wondering what this is all about allow us to explain by saying the state Department of Human Services, (DHS) first hired Deloitte Consulting, a division of New York-based Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, in November of last year under a $2 million, sole-source contract to provide Medicaid recipients with Internal Revenue Servicerequired forms showing that they had coverage during 2015.

The form is used to prove to the IRS that an individual had coverage that met minimum requirements under the controversial Obamacare, which may soon be abolished when President-elect Donald Trump takes command.

With that said we would certainly hope that the ridiculous contract our state’s DHS signed with this private, profit-making consulting firm, stipulates that if Obamacare is abolished this contract would become void. It would certainly be an insult to the taxpayers if DHS continued paying this private firm when, not if, Obamacare is abolished.

As we’re all aware, under Obamacare, those individuals who go without such health coverage for three months or more during the year can face a socialistic penalty when they file their tax returns.

So seems politicians serving on the Legislature’s Joint Performance Review Committee approved the contract on Nov. 18.

Here’s one of the problems we have with this. A significant number of the tax forms mailed out earlier this year by this very same consulting firm were returned because the addresses on file for the recipients were incorrect.

Responding to that issue was Mary Franklin, director of the Human Services Department’s Division of County Operations, who said in some cases the forms went out to people who were covered by Medicaid for some part of 2015 but had left the program by the time forms were mailed.

What assurances does DHS have that this won’t continue to be a problem in the future, and will this consulting firm be required to reimburse the state for distribution errors?

The frustrating thing about this is that this is one of the biggest expenses state government has is providing free health care, subsidizing Medicaid, paying to support the state’s version of Obamacare, address the needs of over a quarter million Arkansans dependent upon government subsidies and now forking out a couple million dollars to perform a mediocre task that these Medicaid recipients could do very easily for themselves just like the rest of us do.