Friday, May 16, 2014

USA - Employees blow whistle on ObamaCare scam; workers paid to pretend to work

OFF THE WIRE
Whistleblowers are coming forth to decry a scandal wherein scores of ObamaCare application takers get paid to do nothing.

An anonymous source at an Affordable Care Act processing center told a KMOV TV reporter that employees sit and stare at their computer screens all day long, instructed just to click the “Refresh” button every ten minutes.
The employee in Wentzville, Mo., revealed that co-workers in his state, in Kentucky and in Oklahoma, probably 1,800 in number, are “trying to get one of 30 applications that pop up. There’s just not enough there,” according to 4 News.
“Their goals are set to process two applications per month,” he added, “and some people are not even able to do that.”
Yet astonishingly, the call centers, owned and operated by British firm Serco, are still hiring. They won a $1.2 billion contract from CMS, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and get paid according to their number of employees. But since healthcare.gov became functional, the paper processors have nothing to do.
Sen. Roy Blount, R-Mo., said he was unaware of the boondoggle, but that the entire application structure on the surface seemed unreasonable. Serco refused to respond to inquiries and CMS issued a perfunctory statement signifying nothing.
KMOT’s investigative reporter Chris Nagus said that more whistleblowers were coming forth and he would continue his discussions with lawmakers.