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Monday, January 19, 2009

Ind. Gov't. - More on: Issues continue with state's new welfare eligibility system

Updating this ILB entry from Dec. 31, 2008, Bryan Corbin of the Evansville Courier & Press reports today in a story that includes these quotes:

Although the governor of her own party did not want her to, state Rep. Suzanne Crouch has gone ahead with her plan to introduce a bill to halt temporarily the expansion of Indiana's new welfare eligibility program.

Crouch, a Republican from Evansville, last week filed House Bill 1691 to pause the administration's welfare modernization process from expanding to the 33 remaining counties it has not yet reached. * * *

The modernization program has been rolled out to 59 counties in stages, reaching Southwestern Indiana last May.

Since then, Crouch and other local legislators have been inundated with complaints from constituents and Evansville health care providers who say the new call center system loses critical documents, causes inordinate delays in enrolling patients, issues conflicting information and is hard for the elderly and disabled to navigate.

If passed, Crouch's bill would stop the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration from expanding the modernization to remaining counties until a committee of the Legislature reviews the rollout.

A Republican, Crouch repeatedly has said she supports the Daniels administration's modernization goals, but the sheer volume of complaints from constituents and hospitals indicates the system needs to be fixed before it's expanded further.

"The problem is we currently have systematic problems that need to be addressed; they need to be fixed," she said. * * *

When Crouch introduced her bill, a powerful House Democrat, Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, signed on as co-author. If it passes in the House, Crouch's Republican colleague from Evansville, state Sen. Vaneta Becker, will be the bill's Senate sponsor. * * *

Constituents complain not only about the FSSA call center and Web-application system, but also about the remaining FSSA county offices, where clients encounter very long lines and long waits for assistance, the legislators said. "They just have to show up; there may be 100 people there. They may not get waited on that day; they may have to take off from work again and come again to try to get their kids signed up for Hoosier Healthwise (a state health care program for low-income people). That is not an efficient way to do business," Becker said. "Anyone in the business world would tell you that."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 19, 2009 08:23 AM
Posted to Indiana Government