SIM has been granted $48 million in federal funds to spend
and intends to change the payment standards for CT’s entire $30 billion health
system. If it works as intended, SIM’s decisions will touch every life in the
state.
It is critical that all SIM decisions on standards of care
and spending are ethical and not driven by self-interest. For
six months, independent advocates have been trying to proactively prohibit conflicts
of interest by SIM and CAB committee members to ensure the best decisions are
made from the beginning. We did not want to file a “gotcha” complaint after a
problem occurs, but to prevent them. Over the last six months, we made a proposal to the CAB
and sent a sign
on letter to the Lieutenant Governor urging them to adopt the Code of
Ethics that applies to all other policymaking and grant making groups in the
state. We have received no answer and no action has been taken. In January, we
requested the opinion from the Ethics Commission.
Unfortunately in the meantime, exactly the situation we were
trying to avoid has happened. A member of the SIM steering committee has
applied for support for his organization under a $650,000 RFP issued by SIM.
That same member appealed to another SIM committee that he is not a member of to
ease their standards so his organization could qualify. The committee agreed
and he then reportedly applied under the lower standards.
Advocates argued to the Commission that this could not have
been the legislature’s intent and called for a change in the law to close the
loophole and, in the meantime, for SIM to halt current procurements that
violate the Code of Ethics. Commission members agreed and thanked the advocates
for being proactive in preventing ethical violations. They discussed plans to
seek changes to the law and to send their own letter to the Lieutenant Governor
recommending SIM adopt strong ethical policies voluntarily until the law is
fixed. Unfortunately the questionable RFP procurement is now in process.
