How’s that new health care contract for state workers, retirees working out? Ties to Perry's staff.
Lawmakers are sniping at UnitedHealth Group, two years after its main subsidiary took over a state health care contract affecting nearly a half million Texans.
The Minnetonka, Minn.-based company hired super-lobbyists connected to Gov. Rick Perry, such as former Perry chief of staff Mike Toomey and former Perry campaign manager Luis Saenz, when it snagged the four-year, $204 million Employees Retirement System deal in 2012.
United wrested the work as third party administrator for 445,000 active and retired state workers and their dependents from long-time vendor Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, a unit of Chicago-based Health Care Service Corp.
The dispute has to do with some House lawmakers’ concern that some state employees may be paying much higher medical bills because caregivers they see are “out of network” – and even when they go to an in-network hospital, they can be slammed because anesthesiologists, radiologists and other hospital-based providers don’t have contracts with United.
Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/hows-that-new-health-care-contract-for-state-workers-retirees-working-out-some-lawmakers-raise-red-flags.html/
