Today’s SIM steering committee meeting has been cancelled.
(BTW- the Medicaid Council meeting scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed to
next Friday, the 16th.)
Tuesday’s SIM Consumer Advisory Board (CAB) meeting was
frustrating. They were supposed to vote on an ethics
resolution proposed last month, but delayed a vote yet again. (They sent it
to a workgroup for more study.) They are questioning whether they are legally
subject to the state’s Code of Ethics for public officials. The Code prohibits
people with a role in setting policy and budgets (CAB already has done this in
a good deal of detail), or their businesses, from financially benefitting from
those decisions.
The CAB has already stipulated that they are public
officials in a related refusal to comply with FOI. They entered an executive
session, a meeting where the public is not allowed, to discuss and vote on applicants
for positions on SIM committees. They maintain that the secrecy is allowed
because they are public officials and were discussing a personnel matter.
Bottom line: CAB is asserting they are public officials for
FOI -- evading transparency -- but aren’t sure they are public officials for
ethics -- evading accountability. Several members noted that CAB -- a board
meant to represent and protect consumers in health care reform – should exceed
the legal minimum and “take a higher road.”
In a hopeful note, SIM staff reported that they will
recommend that the steering committee take up the ethics issue for the entire SIM
process. Staff expressed a strong intention to abide by all laws and
regulations, and to ensure the integrity of SIM policymaking and contracting.
