Legislative leaders not happy with Secretary Wos

by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, March 28, 2014.

It looks like Republican legislative leaders have finally had enough of the McCrory Administration’s dysfunctional and scandal-plagued Department of Health and Human Services, judging by Secretary Aldona Wos’ appearance this week before the Government Operations Committee.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown listed many of the problems at DHHS before asking Wos “How can we as a General Assembly feel safe or comfortable that you can implement a reform package when we still have all these problems?”

That doesn’t seem to bode well for McCrory’s plan to create Accountable Care Organizations as part of a proposal to overhaul Medicaid this year.

News accounts described the atmosphere at the meeting as tense with Wos raising her voice as lawmakers peppered her with questions.

She was asked why she has not appointed a new Medicaid director. The job has been vacant since former director Carol Steckel left the post in September after only eight months on the job.

Steckel was hired with great fanfare to lead the administration’s Medicaid reform efforts and traveled around the state with Wos pitching a plan to turn over the program to out-of-state for profit managed care companies, an idea that prompted widespread opposition.

Reportedly Steckel also had a falling out with Wos who has been criticized for her management style.

Wos told lawmakers this week that she has had trouble convincing potential candidates for the job to even consider it because of what she called micromanaging by the General Assembly.

That isn’t likely to improve her standing in the Legislative Building.

Wos’ latest troubles come after a fall dominated by one scandal after another, giving big raises to former McCrory campaign aides, paying an employee with her husband’s company more than $300,000 for a personal services contract, and huge backlogs in the processing of food stamps and Medicaid reimbursements.

McCrory has never wavered in his support for Wos but it has been a while since he was asked about her.  It would be interesting for someone to ask him what he thinks now, since it’s obvious that the legislative leaders of his own party are not happy with how she is running her department.

More evidence that there’s no Carolina Comeback

Here we go again. Friday morning brought the news that the state unemployment rate dropped again in February and is now 6.4 percent. That means we will have another weekend full of claims about the Carolina Comeback, how the policies of the McCrory Administration have jumpstarted the economy and put people back to work.

McCrory’s press office issued a press release only minutes after the drop in the rate was announced.

The press release did not mention another number in the February employment numbers that was included in the news alerts about the unemployment rate. Employers SHED more than 11,000 jobs in February.

Carolina comeback indeed.

The company you keep

Governor Pat McCrory is one of the featured speakers this weekend at the Conservative Leadership Conference sponsored by the Civitas Institute, a right-wing advocacy group funded almost entirely by McCrory’s own budget director Art Pope.

One of the other headliners at the event is Ann Coulter, the national commentator and columnist and television pundit. It is almost impossible to adequately describe Coulter’s brand of rabid extremism. Here are a few of her notable comments over the years.

“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”

“God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ‘Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’”

“Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they’d have indoor plumbing by now.”

“I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”

“Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the President.”

There’s plenty more, but you get the idea. And Governor McCrory is happily appearing at the same conference as Coulter.

If it is true you that are known by the company you keep, McCrory is sending quite a message to the people of North Carolina this weekend.

The state budget director must be awfully proud too.

- See more at: http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2014/03/28/the-follies-196/#sthash.ebtRYf3T.dpuf