John Young: Texas's privatization disaster
Source: Waco Tribune (TX), Sunday, May 14, 2006
It’s one of Texas’ biggest stories in years. Too bad few Texans know about it. It’s the great Texas Push-Button Bureaucracy-Eliminating Paper-Pusher Massacre (TPBBEPPM). I made that name up but not the debacle that state policymakers now face. It’s a mess they’re hoping will slide right past your nose. It came with an understated announcement last week: that 1,000 employees that the Texas Commission on Health and Human Services said it wouldn’t need are needed still. The state was prepared to send the jobs through a corporate shredder. It was part of a massive privatized effort to change how Texas grants food stamps, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).