From The Cap Times:
“No one had any inkling this was happening,” Michael Blumenfeld told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We are just scratching our heads. Why would you do this?” Blumenfeld spoke for the Wisconsin Family Care Association in early spring of 2015.
The frail elderly and disabled, and their families, learned the governor sought to privatize the successful Family Care and IRIS programs, handing them over to a few large insurance companies.
The birth of this idea happened in secret.
The Department of Health Services secretary — charged with shepherding the plan through the legislative process — acknowledged to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she first learned of the proposal when the governor’s budget was released. Evidently her staff also knew nothing of the plan.
For over a year our disabled and elderly struggled with the stress of uncertainty. Home care workers were also affected. Many left for other jobs, which created a huge shortage of workers for the disabled who need help with basic functions.
The unconscionable actions by the governor and his legislative allies caused chaos in so many lives. However, a fighting spirit brought about the death of their very ill-conceived idea.
Read more at The Cap Times.
