By Robert J. McCarthy
NEWS POLITICAL REPORTER
Published:July 21, 2011, 12:00 AM
Mark C. Poloncarz on Wednesday previewed the kind of populist campaign he plans for county executive this year by promising to reopen one of the health clinics closed by Republican incumbent Chris Collins and calling for new measures to root out Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse.
Poloncarz convened an afternoon news conference outside the Rath County Office Building –accompanied by Democratic Legislators Thomas A. Loughran, Betty Jean Grant and Thomas J. Mazur— to blame Collins for ignoring recommendations to rely on more health clinics as a way to battle soaring Medicaid expenses caused by emergency room visits.
And while Poloncarz — the county comptroller — said he submitted comprehensive plans in 2009 to help the county save on Medicaid costs, he said the county executive instead embraced state “opt out” programs that would deny eyeglasses, hearing aids and dentures to Medicaid recipients.
“It shows he just doesn’t understand,” Poloncarz said.
Poloncarz emphasized that reopening at least one clinic also makes fiscal sense, claiming Health Commissioner Anthony
J. Billitier IV recommended more clinical programs for Erie County just at the time Collins was closing clinics.
“The county executive did not listen to that,” he said. “Instead, he closed clinics that saved money.”
The Democrat, in recent weeks, has revved up his so far quiet campaign, taking on Collins over reinstituting the health clinics and reversing the county executive’s plans to place libraries under more local control.
When questioned Wednesday on Collins’ about-face on localities absorbing more than $1.7 million in library costs next year, Poloncarz said the county executive “jumped the gun before actually coming up with a plan.”
But on Wednesday Poloncarz mostly addressed Medicaid, the medical services program for the poor that a succession of Erie County executives has blamed for most of their economic problems. He said he is offering better ideas that will not hurt poor people as much as the policies of the current administration, including:
• Opening one comprehensive health clinic to replace the two shuttered by Collins as a “point of entry.” He said closing the clinics has cost Erie County more money because they handled 27,000 people a year at $88 a visit as opposed to $500 per visit in a hospital emergency room.
He pointed to a new health clinic in Chemung County that produced $2 million in savings with just 3,000 visits by Medicaid recipients.
• Using current Social Services resources to create a new Medicaid Inspector General Division to identify fraud and recover fraud payments.
Poloncarz said his office conducted a review of the county’s Medicaid anti-fraud initiative that revealed vendor fraud and overpayments, and that he will adopt measures to prevent further abuse. He said he issued recommendations to stem the problems but that Collins had done “little to actually implement them.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned as comptroller is that people will try to bilk the system,” he said, “but if they know people are watching, they stop.”
But Stefan Mychajliw, spokesman for the Collins campaign, said the county executive’s plan to opt out of some nonmandated services will substantially reduce property taxes.
“The county executive transferred the county’s nonmandated clinical services to local not-for-profit health care providers, expanding care and access for clients while reducing the cost to taxpayers,” he said. “Because Poloncarz is focused on municipal union workers instead of taxpayers, he opposed this transfer and continues to lie about its impact on the community.”