Michigan & Texas Profit Millions In Educational Neglect & Abuse In Medicaid Fraud

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General just presented its audit findings for the State of Texas Medicaid Reimbursement for School-Based Health Services and it found over $18 million dollars in fraud.

Now, here is the background.

"Your goal is to generate profits for the LLC."

Fairbanks, LLC is the state privatized company that has the contract for Texas schools special needs billing programs.

This is its mission statement:

Our goal is not the maximization of what a client can claim from Medicaid.

Seriously.

The mission is not to maximize revenues from the submission of Medicaid cost reimbursements, but to generate profit for Fairbanks through the submission of fraudulent billing to Medicaid to generate "fees".

Yes, it is all about the fees for those for-profit privatized human service agencies, particularly when dealing in child welfare, because, as always, those records are secured through privacy laws, in the "best interests of the child", literally.

Medicaid fraud in child welfare is a multi-billion dollar industry.

The "leadership" of Fairbanks, LLC hails from Deloitte.

Deloitte sucks because it is the same company which set up Michigan's BRIDGES IT system, where, there the system is so horrible, it will cut, confiscate, severe and omit remittance of federal program assistance payments to "The Poors" (SNAP, Medicaid) due to its horrific internal 3 month audit reset mechanism, which generates more fees, and your basic, poorly constructed online application and case management services, of which I aver was intentional for purposes of up-billing.

This is taken directly from the Michigan-Deloitte microcontract:

Effective 5/8/2017, this Contract is increased by $8,980,640.00 for Design, Construction, Testing, and Implementation of the Universal Case Load (UCL) portion of the Integrated Service Delivery (ISD) Project. All other terms, conditions, specifications, and pricing remain the same. Per Contractor and Agency agreement, DTMB Procurement approval, and State Administrative Board approval on 1/24/2017.

This is now the aggregated contract value:  $163,587,804.00

Basically, for doing a half-ass IT job, causing extreme hardship for the residents of the State of Michigan, Deloitte got a bonus, and I bet it comes from fraudulent billing to Medicaid, and switcho-chango federal funding shuffles the state calls "gaming the system".

I have always speculated that the Michigan allows its privatized contractual arms to secure kickbacks to fund political campaigns.

That is correct, Deloitte has a FEC Political Action Committee.

And Deloitte has its dirty little hands all up in Fairbanks, LLC down in the Texas school system in ripping off those special needs students who deserve these services, but hey, do not let me interfere in a tried and true business model of maximizing profits for a privatized, state contracted corporation.

Not all of the direct medical service costs that the State agency claimed for Medicaid SHARS were reasonable, adequately supported, and otherwise allowable in accordance with applicable Federal and State requirements. Specifically, the Contractor coded random moments incorrectly. Of the 3,161 random moments coded as an IEP-covered direct medical service, 274 were coded incorrectly. As a result of these errors, the State agency received $18,925,853 in unallowable Federal reimbursement for the Medicaid SHARS program during the period October 1, 2010, through September 30, 2011.

HHS Audit of Texas Medicaid Fraud in School Based Health Services 2017 by Beverly Tran on Scribd

See, Texas and Michigan have the same mission in educating students of the State: Profit by abuse and neglect.

See, these children who do not receive proper educational services, do not learn and eventually will grow up to become adults who rely upon more Medicaid services, ultimately, furthering diffusing this Medicaid fraud model of "gaming the system", from state, to state to eventually other nations.

Always remember, it is in the best interests of the child to generate a profit!

Snyder's attorneys say DPS students have no right to literacy

In federal court today, attorneys responding to a suit naming Gov. Rick Snyder as a defendant argued that the state of Michigan, which has been so intimately involved with Detroit Public Schools for almost 20 years, has no responsibility to ensure students in the district are able to learn to read.

The suit, brought by seven Detroit schoolchildren in September of last year, charged Gov. Snyder, the members of the Michigan Board of Education, and various other state officials with failing to provide an opportunity to learn.

Now, before you out-county city-bashers erupt in unanimous invective about inner-city pathologies, children who don't want to learn, and babies having babies, read on and decide if any child could learn under the circumstances outlined in the lawsuit. The lawsuit describes classrooms without books, teachers, or even functioning climate control, where temperatures can exceed 90 degrees in the summer and drop to 32 degrees in the winter. The lawsuit describes vermin and nonfunctioning restrooms. The lawyers associated with the case describes an environment where since no books exist no homework can be assigned. Students are essentially warehoused in a building for several hours a day. Yes, in such conditions, even Brad and Ashley from the prosperous precincts of Independence Township might find it a challenge to learn.

What's more, before the state of Michigan intervened, the district had a surplus of $93 million, healthy enrollment and test scores that were on the rise. After the state's "rescue" in 1999, and then under the ensuing succession of emergency managers, little remained of those promising figures. In 2015, as Curt Guyette reported, enrollment had plummeted by nearly 50 percent, the number of schools cut in half, and a tide of red ink annually amounted to tens of millions of dollars, and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars.

But this afternoon, with a straight face, Deputy Attorney General Timothy Haynes argued before Judge Stephen J. Murphy III that the state of Michigan didn't agree that state officials had any responsibility to provide DPS students with literacy. They also challenged that the state has controlled Detroit Public Schools since 1999. The Bill of Rights, Haynes argued, mentions no specific right to literacy. Instead, counsel pointed to the charter operators, authorizers, boards, and intermediaries as possible culprits. The courtroom gallery was dense with a cross-section of inner-city students, teachers, and their families, who showed remarkable restraint to sit in polite silence through this effort to explain away the grotesque barriers to education that prevail at many of their schools.

Then Mark D. Rosenbaum addressed the judge on why the suit should not be dismissed. Never in his life had he imagined he would stand before a court in the year 2017 arguing that the state had an obligation to provide students with textbooks, teachers, and a building in which they could learn without being distracted by the sweltering heat or having to put on a second jacket to stay warm. As the judge and the attorney brought up the fine points in the relevant case law, the discussion was probably heady for even those fine legal minds holding down their side of the bar. At the end of the hearing, Judge Murphy declared he'd issue a decision, though it would likely take longer than the usual 30 days.

Later Thursday afternoon, officials of the American Federation of Teachers blasted the state's motion to dismiss the suit. “The state created these poor learning conditions," their statement read, "and now Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette are further abdicating their responsibility to the children of Detroit by moving to dismiss this case. All these children and families are asking for is what we owe all families — great, well-resourced public schools where parents want to send their kids, teachers want to teach, and children are engaged.”

After the plaintiffs and lawyers streamed out onto Lafayette Boulevard, they spoke to media about the barriers they've faced. Many of them were excited to speak to reporters, to share their stories on camera. Catching a bit of shade in front of the courthouse, it was tempting to dwell on the irony of students being denied everything the Brads and Ashleys of our world take for granted — and ending up fighting the system in the company of legal wizards and well-spoken activists. Talk about gaining an education!

In about 30 or so days, we'll begin to see if the state gets taught a lesson too.

Detroit Public Schools Students v. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Right to Learn Federal Lawsuit by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Privatization cannot thrive nor can corporations generate profit, unless the children fail in schools.

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Michigan passes questionable Medicaid gaming Bill

Once upon a time, Michigan, or rather the Divine Madame Maura Corrigan, conjured up this theory "gaming the system".

"Gaming the system" theory was then, liberally applied by the conservative think tanks as one of the new nomenclatures of "underground economy" (a.k.a. the poverty).

The policy construct was simple:  Blame welfare recipients for the fraud in social welfare programs to distract the public from the contractual fraud.

What is the difference between the welfare gamers and Medicaid gamers?  I am going to answer this.  A welfare gamer is a person who trying to survive off state assistance of 200 percent below the poverty level, whereas, a Medicaid gamer is how the State's Departments scam the feds through taxes to make up for the hundreds of millions in Medicaid fraud penalties it has to pay back.
On May 27, 2014, the Michigan Legislature passed Senate Bill 913 to reduce to 0.75 percent a 1.0 percent health insurance claims tax intended to “game” the federal Medicaid system in ways that result in higher federal payments to Michigan’s medical welfare system. If a 6 percent use tax on Medicaid managed care providers proposed by Senate Bill 893 is disallowed by federal government for this purpose, then this bill would increase the rate of this levy to the original 1.0 percent.

On May 30, 2014, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services determined under Medicaid rules, revenues from an impermissible health-care-related tax may not be used to finance the State’s share of Medicaid expenditures. However, by using revenues from this tax, Pennsylvania lowered its share of MCO capitation payments and increased the Federal share. During our audit period, the Federal Government paid $981 million for supplemental capitation payments designated to hold the Medicaid MCOs harmless. The MCOs received $1.6 billion in supplemental capitation payments to reimburse them for the Gross Receipts Tax, and Pennsylvania retained $1.1 billion of Gross Receipts Tax revenues in its Medicaid MCO fund. No additional services were provided and no additional beneficiaries were served with the proceeds from the Gross Receipts Tax.  (Report below).

Pennsylvania’s Gross Receipts Tax on Medicaid Managed Care Organizations Appears To Be an Impermissible Hea...

Whether or not Michigan intends to use the "gaming" winnings of the Medicaid tax on paying its Federal Financial Participation Rate, reimbursing the federal program for previous years penalties or providing more benefits to program participants is left opened for the state to clarify.


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5 steps U.S. states can take to combat Medicaid fraud

5 steps U.S. states can take to combat Medicaid fraud

As states across the country work to expand Medicaid and build health insurance exchanges, one challenge they will surely face is fraud.

The numbers surrounding fraud in the federal government are almost too large to measure, but consider this one: the amount of fraud uncovered and returned by a single U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) program (the Federal Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program) averages more than $1 billion dollars a year.

To put that in perspective, the total annual profit for Facebook — which just passed 800 million users — is about the same. With more people entering the health care market and more money in the system, the opportunity for fraud will increase dramatically. Leaders must take steps today to make sure that people aren’t receiving benefits in multiple states, gaming the system or exploiting information gaps to their own advantage.

In the past, program integrity has been used as a political football. One team argues that benefits programs should be open and easily accessible to the citizen, while the other argues for greater efforts to prove eligibility and reduce fraud. Today, technology has resolved this contradiction, providing organizations with the tools they need to both improve the user experience and protect against abuse. Just as law enforcement agents can run background checks, technology is now available to test whether beneficiaries and providers are who they say they are, answering questions such as:

• Where has this individual been covered before?
• What might have occurred in other states of residence?
• What are the risk factors?

Big data and the cloud enable these insights, but the key to this technology isn’t actually technology at all: it’s information. The issue with the Affordable Care Act and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) is that information within their constituent parts is often siloed.

We all know what siloed information means for the citizen because we are citizens ourselves. You fill out a form with your insurance provider. And then a form at the doctor’s office. And then a form with your specialist. And another one for your treatment. Each form asks basically the same questions in the same guise, and each one is sending the same message: we don’t share information. Could you imagine this in other industries?

You walk into a restaurant and the waiter takes your order. Then the runner comes out and asks you what you ordered so he can fetch it from the kitchen. Then an attendant comes by and asks you what you ate so she can draw up the check. A meal like that would be a maddening experience, but it would also be prone to fraud, because nobody would know if you were telling the truth.

Health care today is similarly siloed. It is still too easy for fraudulent providers to move between states, and this problem will become even more pronounced as the health care law is implemented. To combat this, states should take the following steps:

1. Think Comprehensively: The first impulse in tackling a complicated law like the ACA is to break it up into more manageable parts, dividing it among various stakeholders and tasking them with specific actions. States must first think comprehensively about how the various pieces of the system work together, however, so they don’t duplicate efforts.
2. Avoid Silos: Security concerns and management divisions encourage organizations to put information in discrete silos. Unfortunately, the end result is often a lack of coordination and visibility, leading to greater instances of fraud. It’s critical that states make concerted efforts at this early stage to ensure that information standards are propagated across their health care systems, so that simple things such as file-format and data fields are machine-readable. Health insurance exchanges, for example, should not be set up independently but, instead, linked to Medicaid information systems.
3. Reduce Complication: Have you ever gotten into an argument playing a board game and had to consult the back of the box? More complexity and more rules mean more opportunities to cheat. States should think from the user perspective and utilize technology to streamline the eligibility process while maintaining program integrity.
4. Stop Pay-and-Chase: Hunting down fraudulent claims after they’ve been disbursed takes additional time and money. States should implement active claiming systems that analyze and model risk before payments go out the door, stopping the pay-and-chase model in its tracks.
5. Make Analytics Count: Both the ACA and HITECH multiply the amount of data that states must manage. Creating systems that can handle these big data environments is only the first step. With the right data quality standards, states can leverage analytics to reduce costs across the system. They’ll be able to see where funds are being spent and better match treatments to real outcomes.

When the government becomes actively engaged in fighting fraud, the effects can be astounding. After widespread fraud was suspected in Medicare claims for durable medical equipment (DME) in Florida, for instance, a partnership of federal and state agencies launched the South Florida Strike Force in 2007. Not only did the program uncover nearly $200 million in fraud within its first two years, it drastically reduced the amount of claims submitted across the state – from $2.76 billion down to $1 billion in 12 months alone.

How did they do it? By sharing information across traditional silos and reducing program vulnerabilities. To a large extent, the ACA offers states a clean slate to design a system without these vulnerabilities. Leveraging the right technologies and sharing information allows states to turn what was a controversial law into a meaningful and effective health care system.

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Maura Corrigan Is A Medicaid Gamer

The purpose of removing families from the rolls is to have them transition to the federal welfare Social Supplemental Income program.  Tapping the federal funding streams is the basis for this analysis and the schemes are typical Maura Corrigan.

Michigan officials disagree on strain caused by removal of thousands from welfare rolls

LANS­ING - There has been no major fall­out af­ter thou­sands of Michigan fam­i­lies were re­cently re­moved from the welfare rolls, the di­rector of the De­part­ment of Human Ser­vices tes­ti­fied today.

Michigan DHS Director Maura Corrigan and her alter ego
The Queen of Child Welfare Fraud (a.k.a. "Queen Gamer")

"There hasn't been an uptick in the food banks; there hasn't been an uptick in the home­less shelters," Maura Corrig­an told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Human Ser­vices.

"We've been looking at that," Corrig­an said. "It's a dog that didn't bite, as far as we're concerned."

But Gilda Jacobs, pres­ident and CEO of the Michigan League for Human Ser­vices, which opposed the welfare cuts, said Corrig­an's information is inconsis­tent with what she is hearing.

"It is way too early to get some hard data," Jacobs told the Free Press. But she said at least two agencies she's heard from are expe­ri­enc­ing increased de­mands for food and oth­er as­sistance.

The de­part­ment projected more than 11,000 Michigan fam­i­lies would lose their cash as­sistance late last year af­ter the state set a new four-year cap on receiving the ben­efits. Of­ficials pre­vi­ously used a five-year fed­eral lim­it, but said some fam­i­lies had received ben­efits for 10 years or longer, due to exceptions.

Asked if she is mon­itor­ing what hap­pens to heads of house­holds and their chil­dren af­ter the ben­efits are cut off, Corrig­an said her de­part­ment is mon­itor­ing.

TRANSLATION: Child Protective Services has not submitted total removals for the month of March.

About 1,000 fam­i­lies are taking advantage of a program offered through her de­part­ment and the Michigan State Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Au­thor­ity under which they can receive an­oth­er six months of hous­ing as­sistance as long as they show they are in a work program or have a job, Corrig­an said.

Thou­sands of oth­ers rejected offers of that as­sistance and Corrig­an said she be­lieves a signif­icant number of those did not want to come forward because they are in­volved in the "under­ground econ­o­my."

"We're at the epi­center of the enti­tle­ment cul­ture," Corrig­an tes­ti­fied.

"This is the vulnerable against the gamers. We have a fair number of people gam­ing the system. The gamers take away resources from the truly vulnerable."

Stop.  Hold that thought.

"Gamers".  I have heard that term used before.  Actually, I know that term well.  I had previously attributed Madame Corrigan with authorship and may now state that I was correct.

Michigan "Health Insurance Claims Assessment Act of 2011"  Public Act 142 of 2011.



Signed by Gov. Rick Snyder on February 20, 2011.

Introduced by Sen. Roger Kahn (R) on April 27, 2011, to repeal a 6 percent use tax on medical services health care providers, and replace it with a 1 percent tax on health insurance claims. These taxes are designed to “game” the federal Medicaid system in ways that result in higher federal payments to Michigan’s medical welfare system. This bill creates the new tax.

Continue reading.

Jacobs said Corrig­an and her de­part­ment should not be looking at the system through a lens that as­sumes widespread cheating "as opposed to how can we help people who are struggling in an econ­o­my that is just starting to recover."

How about focusing on Medicaid fraud in child welfare?   How about antitrust violations of child placing agency contracts?  Perhaps, Madame Corrigan, if you spent a few moments admitting that fraud flourishes throughout your Department in its entire cost reimbursements to the feds, you may find out that there are hundreds of millions being gamed under your leadership.


Madame Corrigan, how dare you attribute the financial woes of the state on a handful of people who are struggling to make it.  How much are we really looking at?  A million?  Let me show you where the big Medicaid bucks are being gamed.

What is the difference between the welfare gamers and Medicaid gamers?  I am going to answer this.  A welfare gamer is a person who trying to survive off state assistance of 200 percent below the poverty level, whereas, a Medicaid gamer is how your Department scams the feds through taxes to make up for the hundreds of millions in Medicaid fraud penalties you have to pay back?

Did I get that correct, Madame Corrigan?

Five Reasons Why Flint Needs To Be Declared A State Of Emergency

If ever the valiant Mayor Karen Weaver, and I call her valiant for being another maternal voice crying out to provide for the well-being of children, needed one more reason to declare a state of emergency, here it is a quick and dirty cost benefit analysis to justify its request to protect and preserve the best interests of the City of Flint's human capital.

Posterity.

The economic stability for the future of the City has been compromised under the leadership of the State of Michigan.

Under current Michigan Child Protection Law, these children who tested for high lead blood level contents would have typically been immediately removed from the home due to environmental and medical neglect, through a state legal action, and placed under the auspices of the state as wards of the court.

It is called exigent circumstances.

It takes a judicial determination to initiate federal funding in child protection cases, meaning, this "targeted population" would be eligible for the state privatized services of child welfare, billable to Medicaid, wrought with fraud, waste and abuse, as a faith-based, non-profit corporation, excluded and exempt from external scrutiny.

Albeit, economic prudence to address the state policies which have exasperated the ills of child poverty has but all been omitted from the speech of "the elected ones", the matter still stands: the failed model for privatization of child welfare is in full swing.

This is all part of Michigan's "Gaming Medicaid"  to maximize revenue off "the poors".

To date, privatization of child welfare sucks.  Just look at the failures of the Michigan and Detroit relationships.

1.  Michigan is under federal court monitoring of its child welfare services because it sucks.

2.  Michigan failed its federal monitoring obligations in dealing with the health and well-being of Detroit's children, horrifically. 

3.  The Michigan EAA is only focused in its ad hoc agenda of white washing years of the Ste's degenerative socioeconomic policies, riddled with the rampant defalcation of Detroit Public Schools and its child welfare services which have, basically, allowed political and professional inurement to flourish.

4.  Michigan's privatized socioeconomic policy models of child welfare have groomed Detroit to lead the nation in child poverty; Flint is in the pipeline right behind.

5.  The Michigan Emergency Manager Law has demonstrated, once again, that it is a failed pseudo-privatization model which has intentionally omitted the posterity of a City (a.k.a kids who grow up to become adults) from its purview.

For the ongoing reasons, federal intervention is necessary and it must be swift.

Godspeed, Mayor #KarenWeaver, I pray thee well in your journey.
In Flint, Mich., there’s so much lead in children’s blood that a state of emergency is declared

For months, worried parents in Flint, Mich., arrived at their pediatricians’ offices in droves. Holding a toddler by the hand or an infant in their arms, they all have the same question: Are their children being poisoned?

To find out, all it takes is a prick of the finger, a small letting of blood. If tests come back positive, the potentially severe consequences are far more difficult to discern.

That’s how lead works. It leaves its mark quietly, with a virtually invisible trail. But years later, when a child shows signs of a learning disability or behavioral issues, lead’s prior presence in the bloodstream suddenly becomes inescapable.

According to the World Health Organization, “lead affects children’s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs. The neurological and behavioral effects of lead are believed to be irreversible.”

The Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014.

The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency.

“The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster,” Weaver said in a declaratory statement.

The mayor — elected after her predecessor, Dayne Walling, experienced fallout from his administration’s handling of the water problems — said in the statement that she was seeking support from the federal government to deal with the “irreversible” effects of lead exposure on the city’s children. Weaver thinks that these health consequences will lead to a greater need for special education and mental health services, as well as developments in the juvenile justice system.

“Do we meet the criteria [for a disaster area]? I don’t know,” she told Michigan Live. But Weaver doesn’t think the city can receive the help it needs without alerting federal officials to the urgency of the matter.

To those living in Flint, the announcement may feel as if it has been a long time coming.

Almost immediately after the city started drawing from the Flint River in April 2014, residents began complaining about the water, which they said was cloudy in appearance and emitted a foul odor.

Since then, complications from the water coming from the Flint River have only piled up.

Although city and state officials initially denied that the water was unsafe, the state issued a notice informing Flint residents that their water contained unlawful levels of trihalomethanes, a chlorine byproduct linked to cancer and other diseases.

Protesters marched to City Hall in the fierce Michigan cold, calling for officials to reconnect Flint’s water to the Detroit system. The use of the Flint River was supposed to be temporary, set to end in 2016 after a pipeline to Lake Huron’s Karegnondi Water Authority is finished.

A petition lobbying for the ending the city’s Flint River water supply garnered 26,000 signatures.

Through continued demonstrations by Flint residents and mounting scientific evidence of the water’s toxins, city and state officials offered various solutions — from asking residents to boil their water to providing them with water filters — in an attempt to work around the need to reconnect to the Detroit system.

That call was finally made by Snyder (R) on Oct. 8. He announced that he had a plan for coming up with the $12 million to switch Flint back to the Detroit system. On Oct. 16, water started flowing again from Detroit to Flint.

David Murray, press secretary for Michigan governor Rick Snyder’s office, told The Washington Post that the state has been working on improving the water quality in Flint and other cities for the past year. It has also offered more than $10 million in financial assistance to pay for a temporary switch into the Detroit system while the connection to Lake Huron is being prepared.

“Flint residents need to have access to safe, clean water,” Murray wrote in an email to The Post. “Gov. Snyder and the administration have been working closely with the city to focus on health issues affecting children and other city residents, and address water infrastructure challenges.”

He added that while Flint’s water is currently safe to drink, “some families with lead plumbing in their homes or service connections could experience higher levels of lead in the water that comes out of their faucets.” An action plan created by Snyder in October includes free water testing, free water filters and the accelerating of corrosion controls in the drinking water system, according to Murray.

For the parents of children who may have been affected, such actions were accompanied by the sense that they had come too late.

These parents and other Flint residents filed a class-action federal lawsuitagainst Snyder, the state, the city and 13 other public officials in November for the damages they have suffered as a result of the lead-tainted water. The suit, which claims to represent “tens of thousands of residents,” alleges that the city and state officials “deliberately deprived” them of their 14th Amendment rights by replacing formerly safe drinking water with a cheaper alternative that was known to be highly toxic.

“For more than 18 months, state and local government officials ignored irrefutable evidence that the water pumped from the Flint River exposed [residents] to extreme toxicity,” the complaint reads.

“The deliberately false denials about the safety of the Flint River water was as deadly as it was arrogant.”

Calling officials’ conduct “so egregious and so outrageous that it shocks the conscience,” the complaint cites the specific experiences of a few plaintiffs and their families, all of whom allege they have been challenged by similar health ailments since high levels of lead and copper entered their bloodstreams.

These conditions include skin lesions, hair loss, chemical-induced hypertension, vision loss and depression. Of the four families described in the complaint, two had ceased to drink Flint water after a certain point — and used it only for washing and cooking — but still said they were exposed to many of the same ill effects.

Snyder’s press secretary, Murray, wrote in an email to The Post that the administration disagrees with points in the suit, but declined to discuss details of pending litigation.

As the Detroit Free Press reported in October, avoiding Flint water became a way of life for the city’s residents.

Those who could afford it opted for bottled water, buying it by the gallons. Those who couldn’t spare the money drank it straight from the tap all the same, knowing that they would be paying for it later. When it came to bathing, some slowly filled bathtubs with pots of boiled water for their children.

(The city issued a boil advisory in September 2014. This recommendation runs contrary to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines on lead in drinking water, which state that heating or boiling water will not remove lead. In fact, “because some of the water evaporates during the boiling process, the lead concentration of the water can actually increase slightly as the water is boiled,” according to the CDC.)

LeeAnn Walters, a Flint resident and mother of 4-year-old twins, took every precaution after blood tests revealed that the level of lead in one of her sons had soared after the switch to Flint River.

“I was hysterical,” Walters told the Free Press. “I cried when they gave me my first lead report.”

She had feared lead was the problem when her whole family developed rashes and her son stopped gaining weight.

Now, Walters said, when her children experience problems as they grow up, she will always wonder whether things would have been different — if their lives would have been better — if it weren’t for the water.

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Conservative advocacy groups unveil DHHS video; LePage says worker poorly train

Let's see if O'Keefe wants to do some real work. I challenge you, James O'Keefe, to go undercover and see some real Medicaid fraud in child welfare.

Conservative advocacy groups unveil DHHS video; LePage says worker poorly trained

James O'Keefe

- Associated Press

AUGUSTA — In a dramatic press event designed to show that the state's welfare system is vulnerable to fraud, two conservative policy groups unveiled a 45-minute secretly taped video of an interaction between a Department of Health and Human Services worker and a dubious applicant seeking MaineCare.

The video, released by Americans for Prosperity and the Maine Heritage Policy Center, shows the DHHS worker trying to help a man with increasingly questionable qualifications obtain benefits.

The man, using an alias, was working under the direction of James O'Keefe, a conservative activist who has led similar undercover stings in attempts to show fraud and malfeasance within welfare agencies, ACORN and Planned Parenthood.

O'Keefe has also hosted a seminar for Americans for Prosperity's RightOnline, a group designed to equip conservative activists with new media tools. His videos have been featured on other AFP state chapter sites, including Ohio's.

AFP and Maine Heritage Policy Center representatives said they had no financial arrangement with O'Keefe.

O'Keefe, responding by email, said he was not compensated, and never has been, by AFP.

The dubious MaineCare applicant did not obtain benefits. While the interaction went on for about 45 minutes, he was ultimately sent away after the initial DHHS caseworker was assisted by a senior eligibility specialist. The specialist told the man that his answers were evasive.

O'Keefe's agent shot the secret video in February. According to Carol Weston, who heads the Maine chapter of AFP, O'Keefe gave the video to her organization last week.

AFP and the policy center showed reporters a 2-minute clip of the video and provided the full-length version on a website. The 2-minute version does not show the caseworker later returning with the senior eligibility specialist.

It's unclear why O'Keefe didn't reveal the video for six months, a move that irked Gov. Paul LePage. Had the video been provided earlier, LePage said, he could have quickly implemented departmental changes to prevent a similar situation.

The conservative groups promoted the video as "explosive evidence" of Maine's vulnerability to welfare fraud.

"Maine taxpayers deserve better than this," Weston said. "They deserve peace of mind that their tax dollars are funding a safety net only for the truly needy, not people who game the system."

Weston and Lance Dutson, the CEO of the policy center, questioned how much of the welfare system's growth in enrollment was attributed to fraud.

LePage, in a press conference that immediately followed the groups' event, said he was troubled by the video. However, the governor focused less on the issue of the system's vulnerability to fraud and more on the DHHS employee's lack of training.

LePage, who took responsibility for the department's lack of "customer service," stressed that the DHHS employee was relatively new to the job. He praised the senior eligibility specialist in the video for asking "the right questions" and turning the man away.

LePage said the frontline DHHS worker should have quickly disqualified the man rather than wasting time before seeking advice.

DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew stressed that the video did not result in fraud and that the employee did the right thing by consulting with a senior employee.

"It's a 2-minute video out of a 45-minute interview," Mayhew said. "There are positives that we also need to focus on. ... We need people to feel comfortable (contacting a supervisor). This individual did."

The 2-minute version shows the man, posing as Ted Ceanneidigh, telling the DHHS worker that he drives a Corvette and has enough money to buy private health insurance. He strongly hints that he is also a drug dealer, provides a business card emblazoned with a marijuana leaf and notes that he deals in metals because it's less traceable.

The worker, who state officials have declined to identify, asks for proof of income to determine whether he qualifies for benefits. The man says he runs strictly a cash business.

"If you don't have proof of income, then you have no income," the worker says.

The policy center and AFP focused on that caseworker's response. Dutson said it showed the worker "assisting in a potentially fraudulent gaming of the system."

Dutson and Weston said the video spoke for itself. Asked why O'Keefe didn't provide the video directly to the administration, Weston said it may have been because O'Keefe knew the conservative groups had championed welfare reform in the past.

On his website, Project Veritas, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, O'Keefe wrote that his work "does not advocate specific resolutions to the issues that are raised through its investigations, nor do we encourage others to do so."

LePage wondered why O'Keefe sat on the video for six months.

"If they had called me back then, believe me, it would have been spread very quickly around the state," he said. "As a matter of fact, I think the video is a great training tool for employees of what not to do."

Democrats and other groups blasted the video, calling it deceptive and divisive. Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, called it a "sting operation without the sting."

"This is a radical group pitting Mainer against Mainer and spreading distrust of government and hatred of public servants," said Alfond, who commended LePage and the administration's measured response.

O'Keefe's work

The Maine video was part of a series conducted by O'Keefe. His Project Veritas shows several other videos attempting to investigate Medicaid fraud.

While O'Keefe's work has been championed by conservative groups, he has also been accused of altering his videos to show a predetermined outcome.

In March, The Blaze, a conservative publication, conducted a thorough analysis of O'Keefe's videos and found differences between edited versions and rough cuts.

The story said O'Keefe deployed "questionable" editing practices to produce a sound bite that would resonate in the media. A subsequent New York Times Magazine piece, written by the author of a recent Rush Limbaugh biography, and a fan of the talk show host, said the edited videos "don't seem out of context."

For example, O'Keefe's famous pimp suit shown in the edited version of his ACORN video in 2009 was not actually worn during the infamous interview.

In another example, the edited video of O'Keefe's meeting with National Public Radio executives in March showed NPR's Ron Schiller blasting conservatives, but the uncut version revealed that O'Keefe left out Schiller's favorable comments about the GOP, including that he hailed from a conservative family and that he was a fiscal conservative. Schiller resigned over the video.

Steve Myers, managing editor of Poynter.org, a website for the Poynter Institute journalism school, recently noted that O'Keefe understands the influence of the soundbite. Myers noted that O'Keefe's edited NPR video has been viewed more than 21 million times, while the full version has about 21,000 views.

MHPC bundled the two-minute version with the longer one on its website. The two-minute version appears first.

Although Weston, with AFP, said O'Keefe presented them with the video last week, O'Keefe said he did not edit the two-minute version.

He said he only posted the full video on his website Thursday morning.

O'Keefe has gotten in legal trouble over his political efforts. He and three others were arrested in 2010 when they entered the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., disguised as telephone workers, in an alleged attempt to tamper with the senator's phones. They were initially arrested on felony charges, but the charges were reduced to entering a federal building under false pretenses — a misdemeanor — and O'Keefe pleaded guilty.