Projo Politics Blog

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The state Senate has postponed a scheduled vote Wednesday to confirm Gary Alexander as the chief of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

President of the Senate M. Teresa Paiva Weed said: "We are working with the Administration to clarify information provided to the Committee on Health and Human Services during the committee's advice and consent hearing last week. Until that information is received, we will postpone the advice and consent of Gary Alexander."

Before becoming the $135,661 acting secretary of the executive office, Alexander served as the director of the Department of Human Services, where he led negotiations with the federal government to reshape the state's Medicaid program -- and remove the notion of entitlement under an agreement known as the "global Medicaid waiver" that was aimed at saving the state $67 million this year alone.

As the executive who oversees the five state departments that deliver health and social services in Rhode Island, Alexander would be responsible for the care of poor, elderly and disabled Rhode Islanders, as well as children in state custody, people in hospitals and those with mental or emotional illnesses.

The decision to postpone the Senate vote was disclosed by Senate spokesman Greg Pare who said he did not know the reason for the postponement but would look into it.
But the postponement came on the day The Journal brought to light a previously undisclosed contract with a New Hampshire company that promised to hire John Stephen, a failed Republican Congressional candidate in the Granite State, to work on the design of Rhode Island's Medicaid-overhaul effort.

While Alexander has described Stephen as a good friend, with whom he campaigned in July 2008, the Carcieri administration had repeatedly said that Stephen's well-publicized role in helping the state negotiate the Medicaid waiver with federal officials was voluntary.

Alexander did not respond to repeated questions from The Journal Monday and Tuesday about the $30,000 contract that NESCSO, a regional consortium of state health and human services commissioners, under contract with the state of Rhode Island, gave LifeShare Management group, the Manchester, N.H.-based company that promised to hire Stephen.

A contract proposal obtained by The Journal says: "LifeShare under the direction of John Stephen and Josh Boynton will complete and present to the Rhode Island Department of Human Services (Gary Alexander) a comprehensive and confidential design and recommendations for a Family Care: Community Based Support Model."

Since "money follows the person," the proposal said "this particular delivery system will focus on institutional diversion (nursing homes, group homes, hospitals) for elder care."

NESCSO executive director Gerald Clay said his organization has assisted a number of states seeking to develop alternatives to Medicaid-financed services, and had subcontracted out portions of the work to Brown University, for example, but never before or since to LifeShare.

Clay surmised the company bid for the work, and someone within state government in Rhode Island recommended the hiring. "This would have been a recommendation," Clay said. "We [hadn't] done any work with them previously, to tell you the truth."

(This entry was first posted at 12:27 p.m.)

 Tags  Gary Alexander Medicaid waiver Providence RI

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