The Corporate Wolf At The Door

Last week, I reported about how Scott Walker wants to throw the disabled and frail elderly to the corporate wolves.  In a nutshell, he wants to do away with programs like IRIS and Family Support Program, and make it mandatory that these vulnerable citizens are forced into a privatized version of Family Support:

Walker would also award all of these contracts in a no bid process.
And to show that the care of these vulnerable adults are not his priority, Walker wants to take oversight of these programs from the Department of Health Services and give it to the Commissioner of Insurance.

In other words, Walker wants to force the frail elderly and disabled adults into a single, expensive program. He then wants to give these contracts - worth more than $3 billion - in a no bid process to large for profit insurance companies, who will have little or no oversight.

Gee, do you think he is fishing for the Big Insurance campaign donations with this immoral giveaway?

The big question is what company could do what Walker wanted.

It would have to be a big insurance company to be able to set up a statewide system. But because Walker wants it done by the end of next year, it would have to also be a company that already has a pretty good understanding of how the system works so that they could be ready to go in such a relatively short time.

The only logical conclusion would be WPS Health Insurance.  They are a huge mulitbillion dollar company who already has contracts to be the third party payer for many of the state's Family Care systems.

To make WPS seem even more likely to be the corporate wolf that Walker wants to feed on our vulnerable citizens is the ties he has to the company.

Just a year ago, Brett Davis, who was Walker's Medicaid director, suddenly up and left his job.  Just a few weeks later, it was announced that Davis had been hired at WPS at vice-president of provider relations.

This is important for a couple, three of reasons.

One, the Family Care program is funded through Medicaid, thus giving Davis an upper leg on most people on being able to run this program in the private sector.

Secondly, the timing of Davis' departure from the state and hiring at the state would make him eligible to do lobbying with the state.  And don't forget that Davis used to be a state legislator himself before Walker gave him his cushy job.

Scott Walker and Brett Davis

Thirdly, Walker and Davis do have a long and tight relationship. The gentle reader might recall that Walker had wanted Davis to be his Lieutenant Governor.  This was evidenced by the fact that Walker had Kelly Rindfleisch doing Davis' fundraising instead of her supposed duties as Walker's Deputy Chief of Staff at Milwaukee County.  Other emails from the Walkergate investigation showed that Walker's team didn't think much of Rebecca Kleefisch, who eventually did become Walker's lieutenant governor.

Now, this is all purely speculation.  But given Walker's modus operandi, it all fits together so very well.  It also follows the pattern that Walker tried to use when he wanted to set up a perpetual taxpayer-funded campaign donation scheme with Sportsman United.

And let's face it...is there anything that we wouldn't put past Walker trying to do, especially if it was meant to further his political aspirations?