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Remember when Texans used to be able to get the benefits they deserved from the Texas Department of Health and Human Relations?
That was apparently before Governor Perry and his neo-conservative friends privatized everything. The Dallas Morning News is running an investigative series by GREGG JONES gjones@dallasnews.com. Click here for a good part of it
Jones shows that people are having to wait far too long to get what they have to have from the State of Texas, if they get it at all. He also explains just who was paid off, who paid them, and how much money was involved. In my capacity as Secretary of the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, I congratulated the editors at the Dallas Morning News. I also forwarded the article to Texas Alliance President Annie Banks in Houston and to National Alliance for Retired Americans.
At the bottom of this murky problem is the ridiculous idea that profit-hungry companies can do a better job, or that they would want to do a better job, than state employees. The companies act the same way as insurance companies -- they avoid taking applications and stall on paying off just as much as they can. Credit should go to the Texas State Employees Union for having fought these "privatization" schemes all the way.
The Texas Legislature convenes in the middle
of January, and the Texas AFL-CIO has its legislative conference right afterward.
Working people and retirees will be pushing to remove the profiteers from
our human services!
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