California's health insurance exchange awards $184 million in no-bid contracts

LOS ANGELES –  California's health insurance exchange has awarded $184 million in contracts without the competitive bidding and oversight that is standard practice across state government, including deals that sent millions of dollars to a firm whose employees have long-standing ties to the agency's executive director.
Covered California's no-bid contracts were for a variety of services, ranging from public relations to paying for ergonomic adjustments to work stations, according to an Associated Press review of contracting records obtained through the state Public Records Act.
Several of those contracts worth a total of $4.2 million went to a consulting firm, The Tori Group, whose founder has strong professional ties to agency Executive Director Peter Lee, while others were awarded to a subsidiary of a health care company he once headed.
Awarding no-bid contracts is unusual in state government, where rules promote "open and fair competition" to give taxpayers the best deal and avoid ethical conflicts. The practice is generally reserved for emergencies or when no known competition exists.
Covered California was created in 2010 and given broad authority to award no-bid contracts as a way to meet tight federal deadlines for getting the new health insurance marketplace operational by last year. The same law also exempted it from sections of the state's public records law, a loophole lawmakers closed last year after it was disclosed by the AP.
The agency confirmed some no-bid contracts were awarded to people with previous professional ties to Lee, but emphasized Covered California was under pressure to move fast and needed specialized skills.
The fledgling exchange "needed experienced individuals who could go toe-to-toe with health plans and bring to our consumers the best possible insurance value. Contractors like The Tori Group possess unique and deep health care experience to help make that happen and get the job done on a tight deadline," Lee said in a statement.
"As this organization matures," he added, "we will rely less on private contractors."
With so much taxpayer money in play, a government watchdog group said more oversight is essential.
Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, said she recognized the need to free Covered California from cumbersome contracting rules that could have hampered its ability to meet Affordable Care Act deadlines.
But with tens of millions of taxpayer dollars at issue, "some accountability and transparency is needed, whether through audits or an alternative oversight body," she said, adding, "To spend $4.2 million on anything, let alone a contract to a friend and former colleague, raises serious questions."
The no-bid contracts represent nearly $2 of every $10 awarded to outside companies by the agency and were among roughly $1 billion in agreements disclosed to AP that the exchange executed from late 2010 through July, according to the records.
Through its first year of operation, Covered California was funded almost entirely by federal grant money.
The founder of The Tori Group, Leesa Tori, worked under Lee when she was a senior executive at Pacific Health Advantage, a small business insurance exchange that failed in 2006. Lee was a longtime chief executive of Pacific Business Group on Health, which managed Pacific Health Advantage, and Tori also worked with him at the parent company.
Long before it opened its doors to the public last fall, Covered California awarded a small contract to Tori for her advice on designing a program to sell insurance to small companies. The $4,900 agreement in late 2011 was executed without rival bids.
The deal would mark the beginning of a lucrative and far-reaching partnership between the agency and the company Tori formed about two years ago, just as national health care reform took root across the U.S. An initial $150,000 contract with The Tori Group in March 2013 was executed by Lee, but later amendments that increased its value to $4.2 million were approved by Covered California's board, an agency statement indicated.
Nearly three years after her first, small contract went into effect, she and employees at her firm hold senior-level positions and work on issues ranging from enrollment to health plan design at Covered California.
At least five other people who are contracted to work at Covered California have ties to the now-defunct Pacific Health Advantage, four of them at The Tori Group, whose employees are paid through the consulting contracts. In all, nine people listed on the group's website, in addition to Tori, work at the exchange.
Yolanda Richardson, Covered California's chief deputy executive director who reports directly to Lee, was a vice president at Pacific Health Advantage. Before she was hired on staff, she received a 10-month, $176,500 no-bid consulting contract from the agency in 2011, about a month before Lee came on board, according to the records.
Tori, the former director of plan management, is now a consultant on plan management. The Tori Group's chief financial officer, Kathleen Solorio, is Covered California's operations adviser. Another principal at the firm, Corky Goodwin, the former interim director of the small-business insurance program, is a consultant on small-business insurance.
Tori said professional credentials qualified her company for the contracts -- working in an exchange gave her team experience rare in the industry.
The Pacific Business Group on Health Negotiating Alliance, a subsidiary of the company Lee previously led, received two no-bid contracts worth a total of $525,000. Spokeswoman Emma Hoo said the work covers "unique and in-depth assessment of plan operations."
John Vigna, spokesman for former Assembly Speaker John Perez, who spearheaded legislation that established the exchange, said Perez was confident that enough checks and balances remained in effect, including oversight by the federal government and a state law that outlines rules for avoiding conflicts of interest.

ISIS magazine claims group has enslaved and sold Yazidi women and kids

A magazine purportedly published by the Islamic State group says that militants have captured, enslaved and sold Yazidi women and children, confirming allegations that have been made against the group for months.
The claim came as Human Rights Watch said Sunday that hundreds of Yazidi men, women and children from Iraq are being held in makeshift detention facilities in Iraq and Syria by the group, commonly known as ISIS. 
Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled into the Sinjar Mountains, many getting stranded there for weeks, after the militant onslaught on Sinjar in August, part of the Islamic State group's lightning advance across northern and western Iraq. Hundreds were killed in the attack, and tens of thousands fled for their lives, most to the Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq.
Iraq's Human Rights Ministry said at the time that hundreds of women were abducted by the militants, who consider the Yazidis, a centuries-old religious minority, a heretical sect. Some also alleged the Islamic State group enslaved and sold Yazidi women and children, though the group itself did not comment on it.
The issue of Dabiq magazine released Sunday stated that "the enslaved Yazidi families are now sold by the Islamic State soldiers." It added that "the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations."
Most of the Yazidis are now displaced in northern Iraq, many having lost loved ones in their flight to safety. Some say that their women and girls were snatched during the militant raid.
In one section of the magazine, a statement attributed to Mohammed al-Adnani, the spokesman for the Islamic State group, read: "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women," addressing those who do not subscribe to its hard-line interpretation of Islam.
The release of the magazine came as New York-based Human Rights Watch said Yazidi men, women and children remain held by the group. Its report noted that the group "separated young women and teenage girls from their families and has forced some of them to marry its fighters."
One woman told Human Rights Watch that she saw Islamic State fighters buying girls, and a teenage girl said a fighter bought her for $1,000, the report said. The Associated Press independently has interviewed a number of Yazidi women and girls who escaped captivity and several claimed that they were sold to Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria.

Dumb Dumber Cartoon

House GOP rallying around Boehner's concern about Obama's purported ‘dangerous’ plan to close Guantanamo

House Speaker John Boehner has denounced any potential White House effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, saying that such a move is "dangerous," could result in terrorists being relocated into the United States and that overriding Congress is another example of the Obama administration’s “legacy of lawlessness.”
Boehner made the statement Friday, following a Wall Street Journal story stating the White House is “drafting options” that would allow Obama to close the detention facility in Cuba by overriding congressional restrictions on bringing detainees into the U.S.
The White House has responded to the story, reportedly based on information from senior administration officials, by saying the president opposes the restrictions but his first choice is to work with members of both parties.
“For many years now, we’ve always looked at options to close Guantanamo Bay,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters Friday. “For now, our position is clear that we’re seeking support from Congress to lift those restrictions.”
Boehner argued that closing the facility -- which would send some detainees home and bring others to the U.S. for trial -- is opposed by an  “overwhelming majority of Americans” and that bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate have passed legislation that prohibits the president from transferring the terror detainees to U.S. soil.
He was joined Friday by Florida GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan, who said such a move would be "a huge mistake," particularly as the U.S. tries to destroy Islamic State, or ISIS, militants.
“As America battles ISIS in the Middle East, the last thing we should do is close a facility used to interrogate and house dangerous terrorists,”  Buchanan said.
The restrictions were included in the fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act passed in May by the GOP-led House.
Schultz on Friday noted the legislation, now sitting in the Democrat-controlled Senate, included a Statement of Administration Policy, in which the White House officially opposes the restrictions.
The president had declared 2014 a “year of action” in which he will use his presidential authority -- through so-called executive action or unilateral action -- to advance parts of his agenda blocked by Congress.
Obama has already used such power to increase the federal minimum wage but apparently has backed off using it to reform contentious U.S. immigration policy until after the November elections.
The future of Guantanamo and its detainees as well as Obama’s legal authority to hold them has long been the subject of contentious Washington debates.
Obama has from the start of his presidency in 2009 tried to close the facility at the Guantanamo Naval base, starting with an executive order that called for its closure within a year.
The Wall Street Journal story also claimed that Obama is “unwavering in his commitment” to closing the prison, which was created in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and still has 149 inmates detained in the country’s war on terrorism.
The story also stated that White House officials think the president has two likely options if Congress extends the restrictions.
He could veto the defense authorization act, which wouldn’t directly impact military funding but would result in a political battle with Congress. Or he could sign the bill while declaring restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners an infringement of his powers as commander in chief, as he has done previously, according to the story.

Despite airstrikes, ISIS forces draw nearer to Baghdad

As of May 29, 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Defense casualty website, there were 4,487 total deaths (including both killed in action and non-hostile) and 32,223 wounded in action (WIA) as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Despite airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, Islamic State militants are in a position to wreak havoc on Baghdad after making gains in nearby territories, adding to the sense of siege in the Iraqi capital.
Yet some military experts believe that the terror group, who now control a large territory along the border of Iraq and Syria, won’t be able to defeat the forces now massed around the capital.
However their new position does give them the ability to wreak terror in Iraq's biggest city, with its suicide attacks and other assaults further eroding confidence in Iraq's nascent federal government and its troops, whose soldiers already fled the Islamic State group's initial lightning advance in June.
"It's not plausible at this point to envision ISIL taking control of Baghdad, but they can make Baghdad so miserable that it would threaten the legitimacy of the central government," Richard Brennan, an Iraq expert with RAND Corporation and former Department of Defense policymake told The Associated Press.
The siege fears in Baghdad stem from recent gains made by the Islamic State group in the so-called Baghdad Belt -- the final stretch between Anbar province, where the group gained ground in January, and Baghdad. The group has had a presence in the Baghdad Belt since spring, Iraqi officials say, but recent advances have sparked new worries.
The Islamic militants have reportedly infiltrated the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, not far from the runway perimeter of Baghdad's international airport.
Islamic State’s proximity to the airport is especially worrisome, because they are now armed with shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles with a 20-mile range, according to the Iraqi Defense Ministry. The weapons, which Islamic State has grabbed up along with tanks, helicopters and fighter planes as it has seized up vast territory in northern Syria and Iraq, could allow the militants to shut down the airport.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said Saturday it launched an airstrike north of the town of Tal Afar, hitting a small Islamic State fighting unit and destroying an armed vehicle. It said two other airstrikes northwest of Hit in Anbar province targeted two small militant units.
Last week, Islamic State group fighters seized the towns of Hit and neighboring Kubaisa, sending Iraqi soldiers fleeing and leaving a nearby military base with its stockpile of weapons at risk of capture. The U.S.-led coalition recently launched two airstrikes northwest of Hit, U.S. Central Command said Saturday.
To the south of Baghdad, security forces fight to hold onto the town of Jurf al-Sukr, and to the north, one Sunni tribe has held onto the town of Duluiyah despite an Islamic State group's onslaught. However, Islamic State group fighters have taken over a number of towns in Diyala province, east of Baghdad.
"It's scary," said Maha Ismail, who recently visited one of Baghdad's new shopping malls. "But we have seen a lot worse than this so we are gathering despite all the warnings."
Islamic State group says it has a foothold inside Baghdad, having claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the city, particularly in the Sadr City neighborhood -- a Shiite stronghold. In August, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiite mosque in New Baghdad, and another in the Shiite-majority district of Utaifiya in Baghdad, which together killed 26 people.
Some attacks go unclaimed, raising fears that other groups may look to capitalize on the tensions provoked by the Islamic State group. On Saturday, a series of unclaimed car bomb attacks in Iraq's capital killed 38 people in Shiite areas, authorities said.
Police officials said the first bombing happened Saturday night when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a security checkpoint in Baghdad's northern district of Khazimiyah, killing 13 people, including three police officers, and wounding 28.
 The second car bombing, targeting a commercial street in Shula district in northwestern Baghdad, killed seven people and wounded 18, police said. The blast damaged several shops and cars.
 Also in Shula, police said a suicide car bomb attack on a security checkpoint killed 18 people and wounded dozens others.
Yet analysts, like Brennan from the RAND Corporation, say capturing Baghdad remains beyond the Islamic State group's ability. At its worst, the group might "start pressing into the western areas of Baghdad, going into the Sunni areas of Baghdad and pressing up against the Tigris (River) -- if not controlling it, then at least testing the control of the central government," he said.
Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said Saturday that the Iraqi military "continues to maintain firm control of the city and there is no imminent threat of an effective" offensive by the Islamic State group.
"While there are pockets of ISIL in the vicinity of Baghdad, (Iraqi security forces) continue to conduct operations to engage these elements and push back with the support of U.S. airstrikes when necessary," Ryder said.
Beyond the U.S.-coordinated airstrikes and the massing of Iraqi troops, the country's religious and ethnic lines likely will staunch any advance by the Sunni militants of the Islamic State group. From Baghdad further south, Iraq's population is overwhelmingly Shiite and the lands there are home to some of its most important shrines.
Already, Shiite militias back up government forces in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq -- their flags and symbols provocatively displayed across the capital. Such militias, like Iran-supported Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, "are battle tested," said David L. Phillips, the director of the Peace-building and Rights Program at Columbia University. Challenging them likely would become a bloody slog for the Islamic State group, he said.
"The militias are not bound by rules of war," he added. "They and (the Islamic State group) share one thing in common: Neither is bound by the Geneva Conventions."

Health care worker at Dallas hospital tests positive for Ebola

A health care worker at a Dallas hospital tested positive for Ebola in a preliminary test, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement early Sunday.
The health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, who was not identified in the statement, provided care for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient in the United States, who died last week.
The worker reported a "low grade fever" Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing. The preliminary result was received late Saturday.
"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in the statement. "We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread."
Health officials have interviewed the patient and are identifying any contacts or potential exposures.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has come under scruntiny for its handling of Duncan, who first showed up at the hospital's emergency room late on the evening of Sept. 25, complaining of a fever and severe pain. Although documents show that a nurse recorded early in Duncan's first hospital visit that he recently came to the U.S. from Africa and his temperature reached 103 degrees, he was prescribed antibiotics and told to take Tylenol, then returned to the apartment where he was staying with a Dallas woman and three other people.
The Associated Press reported that Duncan's temperature reading was flagged with an exclamation point in the hospital's record-keeping system.
Duncan died Oct. 8. A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services said the agency was considering investigating the hospital for compliance with state health and safety laws.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Food Control Cartoon

Oregon ‘first lady’ cops to green-card ‘marriage of convenience’ in exchange for $5G

 

 

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber got one hell of an October surprise, as his fiancée tearfully admitted Thursday to having a green-card marriage to an 18-year-old Ethiopian immigrant.
The stunning admission comes after an alternative newspaper first reported that Cylvia Hayes – who despite being engaged goes by the title “first lady” in the state – had been married, and divorced, three times before.
Two of those were known. But the Democratic governor to whom she’s engaged, and the public, apparently didn’t know about the third.
"This is the most painful part for me," she said, according to Oregon’s Fox 12. "John Kitzhaber deserved to know the history of the person he was forming a relationship with. The fact that I did not disclose this to him meant that he has learned about this in the most public and unpleasant way."
Wiping away tears at a Thursday news conference, Hayes said she accepted around $5,000 to marry the immigrant, Abraham Abraham, in 1997 so that he could remain in the United States.
"It was a marriage of convenience," Hayes said. "He needed help and I needed financial support."
Hayes said she was "ashamed and embarrassed," and did not tell the governor about the marriage until the Willamette Week newspaper began asking questions. She and Abraham have since divorced.
The Democratic governor has not publicly addressed his fiancee's secret marriage, but the issue could come up when he debates Republican state Rep. Dennis Richardson on Friday.
Hayes said she was "associating with the wrong people" while struggling to put herself through college when she agreed to the sham marriage. Hayes was twice divorced and just shy of her 30th birthday when she married the Ethiopian man.
Hayes said she and the Ethiopian man never lived together, met only a handful of times and have not had any contact since the divorce was finalized in 2002.
Kitzhaber, who was governor from 1995 until 2003, divorced his second wife, Sharon, shortly after leaving office. Kitzhaber made a political comeback in 2010. Though they have yet to marry, Kitzhaber refers to Hayes as the "first lady," and she has embraced the role of political spouse while continuing her work as an energy consultant.
A story in Willamette Week on Wednesday said that Hayes has used her title and her role in advising the governor to advance her private consulting business. Hayes said she'll step back from her work advising Kitzhaber for now.
Richardson, trying to gain traction before voters begin casting ballots next week in Oregon's all-mail election, has tried to shift attention to that story.
"It's clear from her past history that the first lady has had no qualms with breaking the law in order to make financial gains," said Meredith Glacken, a spokeswoman for Richardson.
Hayes said she's been cautious in trying to avoid conflicts of interest between her business and first lady work.