Fantastic yet sobering news in the TennCare fight

Finally, the most vulnernable of our citizens have won in the ongoing fight to preserve justice and any sense of morality in the state TennCare program. And so do taxpayers, according to a judge on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The following press release from the Tennessee Justice Center outlines the legal victory from a ruling by the Court of Appeals over the Bredesen administration's use of deceit, delay and despicable heavy-handedness in required care of children of the state. The lengths to which the Bredesen administration has stooped in its ongoing destruction of the state health care safety net are shocking and run counter to the statements of self-congratulation the governor made a week ago to the Nashville Rotary Club.

Yet, why believe the Justice Center and not the Bredesen administration? That's fair to ask.

I know people quite well in both camps. And I can say with absolute certainty that the people at the Justice Center are quite credible. The governor and his aides have too frequently not been credible, and history from the arena to the Dell deal to the destruction of TennCare prove Bredesen's lack of trustworthiness as a public official.

In comparsion, I even know Gordon Bonnyman's son, Houston. I met him when I was near death two years ago this week in a Vanderbilt Medical Center bed. He was my care partner. The young man was most compassionate in my most desperate hours. In his high school years, Houston was an after-school tutor to children in the Edgehill Homes housing project. He certainly is his dad's remarkable reflection.

In addition, a local hero of mine, Gregg Ramos, is on the board of directors for the Tennessee Justice Center. Ramos, an attorney, also is head of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Nashville.

So with this personal knowledge of the political players and advocates, I am able to confidently present you this press release on the legal victory from the Justice Center. Please take the time to read it, because Bredesen is hoping you'll be bored about TennCare and let him do as he pleases.

But the welfare of our state's most vulnerable children is at risk. And so is the openness of government, which increasingly is being thwarted by the Bredesen administration when it comes to e-mails and the conducting of state business electronically.

Please take time to read the following, because it involves the conducting of public policy in your name. The bold-facing of words is my doing to more easily direct you to the shocking parts of the ruling:

"A federal appeals court issued a ruling Thursday in a closely watched case involving TennCare’s treatment of 650,000 children across Tennessee.

"... (the) ruling means that senior state officials must produce electronic records and other files containing evidence about the operations of the TennCare program. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, Cincinnati, also authorized a computer expert to inspect officials’ computers to determine whether officials had altered computer records to evade court orders.

"The case will now return to the Nashville court, where a monitor will oversee state officials’ production of the TennCare records. The court granted the state limited relief, ruling that state officials need not turn over personal computers to U.S. Marshals for forensic copying.

"A federal court in Nashville found in 2001 that the state and its managed care contractors were systematically violating quality of care standards governing the treatment of low-income TennCare children, including those in the state’s troubled foster care system. There was extensive evidence that children suffered serious harm as a result of those violations.

"In 2006, state officials claimed to have fixed the problems. But a panel of court-appointed monitors issued a lengthy report last year finding that the state had not proven that claim, and there remained evidence of widespread problems.

"The case was originally filed in 1998. Thursday’s ruling in the decade-old suit dealt with the state’s failure to preserve and produce evidence in the case. Last year, U.S. District Judge William J. Haynes found evidence of the negligent, systematic destruction of large amounts of evidence by state officials and TennCare contractors. He ordered that computers used by 50 senior state officials, including Governor Bredesen and Finance Commissioner Dave Goetz, be forensically imaged in order to protect their contents from further destruction.

"During the proceedings, the Governor and other officials disclosed that they had used Bredesen’s personal email system and their personal computers for state business. They claimed that by putting the public records on personal computers, officials could shield them from inspection."

... "the appeals court ruled ... that officials must preserve and produce evidence as ordered by (federal) Judge Haynes. The ruling left standing his finding that the state had violated court orders requiring it to produce evidence.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Guy Cole, Jr., noted that the state had made Judge Haynes’ job more difficult by 'repeated delays and the institutional inefficiencies that plague the TennCare system.' He observed that officials’ 'continual noncompliance and acrimonious litigation practice has unfortunately steered this case away' from the goal of ensuring that 'Tennessee’s children receive the benefits owed to them under the Consent Decree and federal law'.

"The costs of officials’ noncompliance have been 'borne by the judicial system and the citizens of Tennessee.'


Wow. So there you have it. Your government is being operated according to the narrowness and pettiness of the few at the expense of the many. And it's being done electronically, to shield you from the truth.