Posted on 02/04/2005 9:23:21 PM PST by SmithL
NASHVILLE - The state wants to remove the longtime legal advocate for TennCare enrollees as part of Gov. Phil Bredesen's push to dramatically cut the number of poor, disabled and uninsured on the government-subsidized health-care program.
Gordon Bonnyman, executive director of the Tennessee Justice Center, represents the 1.3 million people on TennCare and has clashed repeatedly with Bredesen over his plans to curtail the program's ballooning costs.
State lawyers told a federal judge Friday that they will ask that Nashville attorney George Barrett instead represent TennCare enrollees.
Bonnyman said the governor thinks he will have an easier time negotiating with Barrett. "The governor is very angry at me," Bonnyman said after the hearing.
TennCare spokesman Michael Drescher said there is no vendetta against Bonnyman.
Bredesen has long blamed the court cases for getting in the way of his plans for reforming TennCare. The $8 billion program, left unchecked, is expected to eat up roughly $600 million in new state money next year.
The governor's plan would retain coverage for all children, while cutting 323,000 adults from the program by the end of the year. Remaining adults would face prescription limits and other benefit caps.
U.S. District Court Judge William J. Haynes ruled last week that Bredesen couldn't cut the adults from TennCare, or make any other changes, without first getting court approval. Hearings will be set for March to work through that issue, he said Friday.
State lawyers said that Bonnyman faces "a conflict of interest" in representing all the TennCare enrollees.
They told the court that various cost-cutting plans could ultimately reduce benefits for the core population of the expanded Medicaid program. Other plans would cut the "expansion" population of roughly 300,000 enrollees.
Each group would be affected differently and should have their own legal representation, the state argued.
"It is imperative that this issue be raised and resolved as quickly as possible," attorney Michael Kirk said in a statement issued by the governor's office. "There are extraordinary demands being placed on the TennCare Bureau as a result of legal proceedings, legislative hearings and activity, media and other requests."
Bonnyman said removing him as lawyer for the expansion population effectively blocks him out of the court case.
"The state wants to pick who their adversary is," Bonnyman said.
The state has already appealed Haynes' intervention into the TennCare cutbacks, and asked Thursday that the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals expedite its hearings on the matter.
In both courts, the state is arguing that TennCare needs to be cut before it bankrupts Tennessee.
At issue are plans by Bredesen to cut nearly $600 million in state spending from TennCare, and use the money to balance the budget and increase spending in other areas, notably K-12 education.
Typical liberal democratic program run amok. In New York they just keep feeding the beast and raising taxes with never a discussion of cutting bennies. At least in Tenn they can have an intelligent conversation. In NY, medicaid a/k/a caid pays for taxis and car services to the Doctor's office. It pays billions a year to crooked nursing home operators who abuse the patients and billions more for nursing home patients who have given all their funds to a medicaid trust to avoid having the gov't take their property to pay for their care. There is a blank check for prescription drugs, adult day care and home health care. Thbe program is a sink hole and a cesspool of special interests including unions and hospitals. The deep dark secret is that NYC and NYS have far more hospital beds than they need but subsidies keep the excess capacity in place. The program pays all dental, custom made shoes, eyeglasses. It probably also pays for fertility treatments but I can't be sure.
Getting the federal government involved in a state's budget cuts is what happens when the state takes federal monies for a pie-in-the-sky program that was doomed to fail before it got started.
The people of Tennessee might now have federal judges setting the budget requirements of the state over the objections of the duly elected governor.
The odd thing is the governor is a Democrat.
But he's ticking a lot of the left off.
Personally I think it's good he can recognize a train wreck when he sees one.
You just described Tenncare. We actually PAY this idiot to sue the State on behalf of these people.
Keep in mind that oily phil wants the money he saves from Tenncare to be shoveled straight into the ED departments budget...for the children..his beloved universal pre-K program.
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