Lake George/HTNYS/Medicaid

I have been out of the loop while attending the annual meeting of the Healthcare Trustees of NYS (HTNYS) meeting - yep, some fun! But the location is gorgeous, and Angela is with me (not right now - as I write this, she is kayaking on the lake). Rose, Al, and Uncle Ralph are in Cortland with the kids.

These kind of meetings make me cringe as I am confronted by what is usually, in my world, only a nebulous concept: "consultant" - and see what these guys (and gals) actually do. Which is to perform. They address topics of concern in ways that can be entertaining, but if enlightenment is the purpose, then the cost/benefit ratio is pretty high. The room, the food, the entertainment - these things cost money. The utility of these "consultants"? Often difficult for me to discern.

The low-light so far is the guy who did a presentation on NYS Medicaid. It is the most expensive program in the country, it is riddled with fraud, it is not subject to the kind of cost/benefit analysis to which any business would subject an expensive component of its operations budget, and this guy is up there defending it whole hog. It was all on display: the tendentious presentation, the setting up of straw men to characterize opponents' positions, the appeal to provincialism (well, this is how they do it in Tennessee, but (implicitly) why would we in NY do it like they do it in Tennessee), etc. I was doing a slow burn throughout, and finally had had enough and walked out before the Q&A, for fear that I would have to skewer the guy and that it would not be pretty.

So, instead of taking apart some dude who would come to the battle of wits unarmed, I am going to turn my attention to developing my own presentation on NYS Medicaid. I have perspective as a county legislator and physician, as well as an analytical bent, that should serve me well as I develop my arguments. I don't know, what with a campaign to run, when I will do this, but I suspect it will happen piecemeal, and that I will post periodically. I hope this develops into an exchange, not just a performance, and that readers and co-bloggers will read it critically and ask tough questions.