- Welfare ‘hybrid’ to emerge, By Angela Mapes Turner, October 18, 2009, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “More than $360 million into the state’s largest private contract, Indiana faces uncertainty about how it will rebuild from its failed welfare privatization attempt and what it has actually gained. The state’s Family and Social Services Administration also faces the task of replacing its dinosaur of a core computer system down the road – a cost that had not even been included in the IBM contract. Gov. Mitch Daniels announced Thursday he was firing IBM Corp. as administrator of the state’s food stamp, Medicaid and welfare benefits and that the state would assume IBM’s role at the helm of a ‘hybrid’ system…”
- Daniels, GOP could face welfare deal fallout, By Mike Smith (AP), Chicago Tribune: “Democrats to Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels: We told you so. The gloating was to be expected after Daniels announced Thursday that he was canceling a contract with IBM Corp. to automate applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare benefits. The project introduced in the spring of 2007 had been fraught with complaints of lost documents, delays in approving benefits, lengthy call hold times and severed eligibility for Medicaid and food stamps. Federal officials had closely scrutinized the state’s performance, and the state had put IBM on notice that it needed to improve…”
- Welfare critics await new system, By Eric Bradner, October 18, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “A human touch could have eased the anguish of Omega Young, an Evansville woman who fought for six months with Indiana’s welfare agency to have her Medicaid benefits reinstated at the same time she was fighting a losing battle with cancer. No one took note in time to help Young, whose benefits were approved March 2, the day after she died. But her struggle was vindicated when Gov. Mitch Daniels decided last week to cancel the state’s 10-year, $1.34 billion contract with IBM Corp. that created the modernized system she tried so hard to navigate, said her sister, Christal Bell. ‘She needed all the help she could get,’ Bell said. ‘But there are other people who need help, too.’ Now, thanks in part to Young’s story, others who face hardships such as disease, poverty and disability might get the personal assistance they need from Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration under a newly-announced hybrid system…”
- Firms downplay local impact of canceled IBM contract, By Dave Stafford, October 18, 2009, Anderson Herald Bulletin: “Companies in Anderson and Daleville that expanded two years ago when IBM won a contract to privatize Indiana’s welfare system downplayed local effects after the state canceled the deal. An IBM call center in Daleville and an Affiliated Computer Services facility at the Flagship Enterprise Park had expanded as part of an IBM pledge to create 1,000 jobs in exchange for getting a $1.34 billion contract to handle welfare applications and provide other services for the Family and Social Services Administration…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty