Biggest Questions Facing Raimondo Administration's Botched $500M UHIP Rollout

Biggest Questions Facing Raimondo Administration's Botched $500M UHIP Rollout

Concerns over the “botched rollout” of Rhode Island’s United Health Infrastructure Project (UHIP) have the House Finance and Oversight Committees set to grill members of the Raimondo administration at a hearing at the State House at 3 p.m. on Thursday.

Both committee chairs -- as well as Republican leaders -- are raising questions pertaining to how the new computer system missed payments for 29,000 Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients and Supplemental Nutritional Assistant Program (SNAP) benefits were not disbursed to some recipients at the beginning of the month, as well as how the state is containing skyrocketing costs. 

SLIDES: UHIP Questions RI Leaders Want Answers To BELOW

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“Impatience on behalf of state agencies’ leaders and inadequate preparation resulted in a half-baked program being thrust upon Rhode Islanders. This time, it went beyond embarrassment and inconvenience, leaving our most vulnerable citizens — children, the elderly, the disabled, the needy  — without support. This avoidable blunder affected thousands of human lives, and those responsible for it should account for their actions,” said Finance Chairwoman Patricia Serpa.

Rhode Island's biggest-ever IT project launched at the end of September — and what was originally a $135 million budget turned into $364 million last year. The state is requesting an additional $124 million in federal funding that would bring the total to nearly a half billion dollars, for roughly $487.4 million from 2011 though 2018.

Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello said he is looking for answers on Thursday. 

“I want to be sure that proper testing was done to uncover and correct defects in the system.  I understand nothing of this nature is rolled out flawlessly, but I do want to know if we ignored the advice of highly paid IT experts and representatives from federal government as to whether this system was ready to serve RI and its neediest citizens from day one,” said Mattiello. “We will be looking for the Administration to provide detailed corrective actions for each of the issues identified so that we have an accurate, effective and sustainable system that does what it is supposed to do.”

Former gubernatorial candidate and vocal UHIP critic Ken Block, whose taxpayer advocacy group WatchdogRI has already raised questions about the rollout — said he questioned the effectiveness of a House inquiry, however. 

“My only comment will be that I hope that this hearing is far more substantive than the community grant hearings,” said Block of the hearing, which will not include public testimony. 

Program Critics Take Aim

Representative Mike Chippendale, who is the Co-Vice Chair of the House Oversight Committee, said his intent Thursday is to “learn whether or not the Administration proceeded with the roll-out against the advice of the federal government, and at risk to potentially heavy federal fines, or did they act on the advice of the vendor.”

“First and foremost we must immediately see to it that whatever human resources necessary are allocated to ensure that the citizens of RI in need of these vital services receive resolution within 48 hours,” said Chippendale. “In parallel there must be Legislative Oversight of the progress of the program implementation, as well as an Oversight investigation into whether or not the vendor should be held accountable for any and all problems with the system that resulted from their negligence - and that accountability includes all costs incurred by the state as a result of their flaws. This hearing cannot be a "one and done" event - this issue is inflicting tremendous pain on the neediest of our population while costing the state hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in cost overruns. The House Oversight and Senate Oversight Committees must monitor those two aspects of this problem on perhaps even a weekly basis until a resolution is reached.”

While the questions posed by the House Committee Chairs were sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Elizabeth Roberts, Department of Administration Director Michael DiBiase, and Department of Human Services Director Melba DePena — some, including the taxpayer advocacy group OSTPA — are demanding accountability from Governor Raimondo.

"The UHIP debacle will make 38 Studios look like pocket change.  How can the Governor be so cavalier in her response to a disastrous rollout of a $364 million system that has the potential for an additional $124 million in costs?  How could she possibly not know that the federal government wrote a letter to the state indicating that the system was ‘inadequate and unacceptable’?  And while the Governor said she ‘won’t let them wiggle out of delivering for us’, will there be an outside audit of Deloitte’s role in developing a system that didn’t deliver and a deep dive into why the cost of this already very expensive system warrants a request from the federal government of an additional $124 million?” said Pam Gencarella with OSTPA on Wednesday. 

Mike Stenhouse with the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, who has been a staunch critic of UHIP since its inception, said his own question about the program was “much different” than that of others. 

“My question is much different,” said Stenhouse. “Everyone else will ask about the problems and what we spent -- I want someone on record to promise us they will not use UHIP to promote and proactively expand the public service welfare rolls here in the state.”

State's Preliminary Response

Department of Administration Spokesperson Brenna McCabe responded to questions about the rollout — as well as what the state plans to do moving forward. 

“We have been very forthcoming about the challenges we’ve faced during the implementation period, including the $39.92 supplemental SSI payment that was delayed for approximately 29,000 people. We just announced that the State would be authorizing overtime to tackle the backlog at our DHS offices and extended hours to alleviate lobby wait times. We are taking every step we can to ensure we are identifying, prioritizing and resolving any issues that may emerge as quickly as possible,” said McCabe.

As for warnings from federal partner that the system was not ready, McCable offered the following. 
 
“The decision to launch in September was made at the appropriate level. This was a shared decision between EOHHS, DHS and DOA. We are been working closely with our federal partners, including FNS, for more than a year and had successfully tested the system. It’s a large, complex system, and we expected issues to arise.  No amount of testing could help us predict every single scenario or challenge that occurred or will occur in the future,” said McCabe. “We extended our project timeline by 60 days in response to recommendations from FNS and conducted a hybrid pilot, which tested thousands of cases. This action was prudent – had we not compromised on FNS’ suggestion to conduct a three-month live pilot, it would have increased the project’s risk and budget because software would have needed to be redesigned, coded and tested. A three-month live pilot would also have negatively impacted HealthSource RI’s open enrollment period. No amount of testing could help us predict every single scenario or challenge.”