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| Gov. Sam Brownback, Courtesy of the Kansas City Star |
The months-long inquiry involves Parallel Strategies, a Topeka consulting and lobbying firm created by a trio of veteran Brownback employees who left government service to work in an environment where coziness with former colleagues could pay dividends.
Of concern to the FBI were behind-the-scenes financial arrangements related to Brownback's privatization of the state's $3 billion Medicaid program. The governor's branding of KanCare handed to three for-profit insurance companies exclusive contracts to provide Medicaid services to 380,000 of Kansas' disabled and poor.
As it relates to KanCare, the three Medicaid contractors reinforced their lobbying operations by hiring individuals who are no strangers to Brownback.
A partner in Parallel Strategies was added in January by United Healthcare. Gary Haulmark, a former deputy Cabinet secretary in the Brownback administration, resigned from state government in 2013 to represent Amerigroup. Sunflower employs a key person who ran a lobbying firm with a Parallel Strategies partner from 2004 to 2010.
"I believe it is wrong for people as closely connected to the seat of power to be in a position of lobbying for pay," said former Sen. Dick Kelsey, a Republican who represented a district south of Wichita. "I still have a problem with the pay-to-play concept."
Kelsey said Brownback officials had a political interest in tamping down complaints about KanCare until after the November election. There is an aggressive behind-the-scene campaign to minimize public criticism about denying access to treatments, placing administrative hurdles on providers delivering care, and to delaying payment of contractors.
At the same time, Kelsey said, the managed care organizations want to please the administration by hiring Brownback associates. It is a symbiotic relationship, Kelsey said, that hasn't best served interests of clients.
Individuals who have expressed criticism about KanCare said they were targeted by Republicans representing the legislative or executive branches of state government.
Tom Laing, executive director of Interhab, an organization supporting people with developmental disabilities, said the group's two-year effort to block placement of DD clients in KanCare left him with political wounds. The level of political muscle brought into play by Brownback supporters was a surprise to some unfamiliar with Washington hardball, he said.
The GOP-led Legislature ordered an audit of the state's community development disability organizations, the majority of which are represented by Interhab.
"I've never felt partisanship like it has been applied," Laing said. "You're in the governor's corner or not. Folks to whom this happened have an obligation to talk about it. I don't care what party it is. The greatest danger is refusing to call it out."
Read the entire report for more detailed information.
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