Archive for special interest groups
My thoughts on the Passport Administration Board
Posted by: | CommentsHello again to my gang of loyal readers. This week I would like to comment on the situation with the Passport Administration Board. For those of you who don’t read The Courier-Journal, Passport is a private managing company that handles Medicaid for Jefferson County and the surrounding area. Up until recently, they had earned high marks for efficiency and customer satisfaction as well as praise from the Governor. Governor Beshear had even discussed privatizing the rest of the state in the same fashion.
A report then appeared in The Courier-Journal discussing perks the Passport Board had been awarding themselves such as trips, meals, bonuses, etc. At this point, the Governor reversed course and called for the resignation and re-organization of the Passport Management Team. To date, three officers have resigned and the future of Passport is in doubt.
I would like to make three points. First, while I don’t condone using taxpayer dollars for perks, it may be necessary to have some perks in order to attract solid efficient people to manage the program. In addition, don’t many other state officials also take trips and have meals and other perks at taxpayer expense? What is “good for the goose is good for the gander’.
Secondly, did this come to light because state Medicaid officials were afraid of losing their cushy jobs if Medicaid were privatized? It appears people in public office often will lie, slander, or whatever it takes to keep positions that are often not needed or inefficient.
This brings me to my last point. Would you not rather have an efficiently run program with good customer satisfaction and maybe lose some money to perks or have it run inefficiently as many state programs do. For example, one quality person would make, say, $150,000 and take another $10,000 in perks but would still be more efficient than paying three poor quality state employees each $60,000 to waste time and money through incompetence. For my money, I’ll take the private management over public every time. Too many state employees act as if they have guaranteed for life jobs and work accordingly.
Well, that’s my take. See you next week! Doc.
Back trouble again
Posted by: | CommentsHello this week. Under the “when it rains, it pours” category, my back went out again this past weekend. It happened three hours from Louisville just ten minutes into my cousin’s wedding reception and I had to just sit there in agony for over three hours while everyone else celebrated. I then had to sleep on the floor most of the next two nights until I could get back to my chiropractor to put me back in one piece. I am now on the mend again. Speaking of wedding receptions, I witnessed something I have never seen before and would hope to never see again. At the reception, the host announced following the initial dance that you could buy a few seconds dance for a dollar. This has got to be naked greed at its worst. It seems many people try to extract every dollar they can possibly get when they marry. Whatever happened to just celebrating with your family and friends?
Speaking of marriage, did anyone see the article in The Courier on Tuesday about staying out of welfare? They started by stating the old golden trio – graduate, marry, and get a job. They then went on to say that marriage before kids is the most important factor to avoiding poverty. So why are there no public campaigns advocating marriage. Why, because no government program or job is served by people getting married. There is no one to profit. That is the dirty little secret. Nothing good in this country ever gets promoted unless someone can profit by it.
Well, the baseball playoffs are starting. While I’m excited that my Reds are in it, my betting money would be on Tampa and San Francisco to meet in the World Series. It is very encouraging to see so many small payroll teams in the playoffs. Statistics show that while everyone thinks the home field advantage is important; the only stat that matters is who wins game one of the divisional series. The winner wins the series 82% of the time. Game 5 is meaningless. No divisional series has reached game 5 in the past four years.
Good luck Reds!
See you next week. Doc
