I believe Michigan should take care of its most vulnerable neighbors — people with disabilities who depend on Medicaid to get through their day. That's not a political position, it's a basic value most of us share. So I was alarmed to learn that a private contractor has been making life-altering coverage decisions for our disabled neighbors — and getting them wrong.
A KFF Health News investigation published this week found that Deloitte, which has run Michigan's Medicaid eligibility system since 2006 under contracts totaling roughly $768 million, has been systematically placing disabled people into skimpier benefit tiers or denying their coverage altogether because of known IT errors. The state has been aware of these problems. That means real people — Michiganders who qualified for full benefits — may have gone without care, lost home health aides, or faced medical crises because a computer was broken and nobody fixed it. That's not just wrong, it's a failure of our state's basic duty to the people it serves. We've spent three quarters of a billion dollars on a system that's been hurting the people it was supposed to help.
I'm asking you to investigate what the state knew about these errors, when it knew, and what Deloitte is being held accountable for — and to hold public hearings so Michiganders can see the answers for themselves.
Please open a legislative investigation into Deloitte's Medicaid eligibility failures and hold public hearings so Michigan families can find out what went wrong.
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