Fung campaign lashes out at Raimondo over UHIP problems

May 12--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Cranston Mayor Allan Fung's campaign for governor has a new rallying cry: "U-R-Screwed."

"Raimondo's big screw up continues to hurt the most vulnerable and those who care for them," a news release from Republican Fung's campaign said.

"Twenty long months of lines out the door at [the Department of Human Services], missing benefits & nursing home closures from the inability to operate without reimbursements, Rhode Islanders have had it with [Governor] Raimondo's ineptness. In the private sector, Raimondo would've been fired a long time ago," said Fung campaign spokesman Andrew Augustus on Friday, on the morning after the latest House Oversight Committee hearing on the state's "UHIP" debacle.

Citing Fung's experience trying to get his late father into the Cedar Crest nursing home, Augustus said: "Raimondo's team continues to lose applications -- just as they twice did for Mayor Fung's father ... situations that fellow Democratic Representative Jason Knight called 'a lack of competency and and a lack of professionalism.'"

The Fung campaign statement was headlined, "Rhode Island Synonyms: UHIP and U-R-Screwed."

Raimondo's campaign spokesman David Ortiz said, in reply: "Governor Raimondo knows better than anyone the hardship Deloitte's failure has caused. She's apologized for launching too early and won't pay Deloitte another penny until it's fixed."

Deloitte is the contractor that built the state's eligibility-verification computer system, known as the Unified Health Infrastructure Project.

Ortiz alleged that "Fung's plan to fix UHIP is to gut Medicaid and make it nearly impossible for struggling Rhode Islanders to get health care."

He also cited Fung's silence "when President Trump tried to end the Affordable Care Act and take health insurance away from people with preexisting conditions. Rhode Island's most vulnerable would be no better off if Allan Fung is elected than if President Trump were running the state."

Fung spokesman Augustus did not respond to, or deny, Ortiz's "gut Medicaid" allegation, accusing the Raimondo camp instead of trying to "deflect and duck her responsibility for the UHIP disaster."

The Thursday oversight committee hearing, led by state Rep. Patricia Serpa, a West Warwick Democrat, turned into a public dressing-down by the lawmakers of top administrators in Raimondo's cabinet, including Health and Human Services Secretary Eric Beane and Department of Human Services Director Courtney Hawkins.

Among the issues: lost applications from people seeking Medicaid-paid placements in nursing homes, over-charging and under-charging of patients and families, and "significant discrepancies" in data reported by the Raimondo administration and the nursing homes.

Another issue of as yet unknown relevance to state operations that came up: the federal indictment in February of Joseph W. Nocito, the former CEO and president of Automated Health Systems Inc. (AHS), the company that runs the state's HealthSource RI call center.

During the course of the hour-and-a-half hearing, Serpa also slammed the administrators for sending documents riddled with spelling errors to the federal government after being told to resend without errors.

"This is embarrassing," said Serpa, blaming "an inattention to details" as a root cause of the problems that continue to plague the state's public-assistance benefits system, 20 months after the ill-fated September 2016 UHIP launch.

"In three out of the four bullets, there are mistakes," said Serpa, pointing to one page. 'I know Director Hawkins and [Secretary] Beane each have communications people in their offices. ... I am going to say it: Shame on them. This should never have gone to anyone. ... It is indicative of a broad inattention to detail."

"I accept your point," replied Beane. "And we will address it and take steps to ensure that the quality of the documentation that we are providing to our federal partners is improved. I accept your feedback."

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