AdLib is online.

  • AdLib : Thanks CL, you sleep well too!

  • choicelady : Always glad to do it when I can! Yes, you stay cool, too. This climate change is for the, well, hot weather lovers. Be careful out there! Good night – sweet dreams!

  • AdLib : Thanks CL, I should be here but very kind of you to offer. You are the official Vox Populi Guest Host now!

  • choicelady : Hope to see you on Vox next week. Will we be having it? If you’re taking the weekend off for the long Fourth, let me know. I can sub in again. No plans.

  • AdLib : Heat wave here too! Stay cool and have a great weekend!

  • choicelady : I should let you get some rest. What’s your weather like there? We’re slated for about 106-108 for tomorrow, and that’s just not fun. Hope you all are much cooler!

  • AdLib : No problem, I don’t blame you for getting upset.

  • choicelady : Thanks, AdLib – you’re a mensch letting me whine!

  • choicelady : Yeah – as you can imagine, Nancy’s not my ‘go to’ role model!

  • choicelady : I appreciate your letting me blow off steam. If I’d not found that demand from the contractor I’d NOT be this angry. I’d pretty much gotten past what happened on the idiot conference call.

  • AdLib : The only time you might compare yourself to Nancy Reagan!

  • choicelady : Well – thank you so much for letting me whine. While I was locked out of Vox I found the demand to change our start dates and just said NO in a very Nancy Reagan kind of way.

  • AdLib : That is your sword!

  • choicelady : I think what’s sharpening – I can feel the strop already – is my TONGUE!

  • choicelady : They will let us bill the first two weeks ONCE – then it’s monthly. But I don’t understand this at all – it’s going to be hard on everyone.

  • AdLib : Hope so but you have to keep your sword sharpened and handy anyway.

  • choicelady : Once we get going, it should be better, but the ramp up is going to be dreadful.

  • AdLib : Oh.

  • choicelady : The state of CA always has had a 45 day window. Sucks.

  • AdLib : How is that legal? A month seems like the max you could do.

  • choicelady : It’s not even all that clear to me. I started to look at their web site – it’s very poorly organized. I could have done better, and I am well known as a technological idiot. It’s worrying.

  • choicelady : AND they pay after 45 days. That makes our Education staff WAIT a month and a half after the first day of work. Where is the logic in THAT?

  • AdLib : Nope, the main knock against the state exchanges and the ACA is that no one understands it…and Lee can’t communicate that to others? That’s not acceptable.

  • choicelady : It did not inspire confidence when an ally in LA told me she’d gone to the public meeting with Peter Lee, head of Covered CA. She said NOTHING he said was clear, he could not or did not answer questions well, and everyone left MORE confused than they had been. NOT auspicious, is it?

  • AdLib : If they won’t let you and the other folks do what needs to be done, ensure the trust and faith of the people in this, then you do need to band together and force them to back off.

  • choicelady : Thank you! At the core of this project lies the capacity to either re-energize public confidence or kill it entirely. We all were selected because we are ‘trusted messengers’ with key populations. If our folks think we are delivering unclear info or make them confused, it’s really not WE who will not be trusted – it’s health reform itself. THAT is a disaster. We all believe in it. We want it to work. They are not helping us to do that.

  • AdLib : I know you won’t let these consultants run you and HC down. Thank goodness for that, glad you’re there!

  • choicelady : I do understand, and you are entirely correct! They are a disaster. They are violating their OWN RFP requirements!!! But all of us – 48 groups and who knows how many subcontractors – are all hung out to dry. They won’t be. Unless Alice Huffman and I take them to the cleaners! I will not be their sacrificial lamb, and she – head of NAACP – certainly will not either. There are others equally as pissed off. We will rebel and go public if we have to.

  • AdLib : CL – My point about Halliburton is just how private industry is not the magic bullet to take care of things.

  • choicelady : Taking care of real business? What is this mythology of which you speak…???

  • choicelady : OK – these folks can’t quite do Haliburton type damage, but if the program, health care, is to be a success, one of the keys is leaving some discretion to us about what we say AND HOW WE SAY IT. Telling us – and they will sneak their own people into our trainings – how to do this is counterproductiv e. We are the best guides to delivering info to our own folks.