Interesting one. When addressing the oversight of congress had always sided with the legitimate requirement of the administration to comply with our oversight. Afterwards airs on book tv every saturday at 10 00 p. M. You can watch all previous programs on our website. [inaudible] thank you so much for coming out tonight. As we have the honor of hosting Daniel Hatcher for his new book the poverty industry. I work with the event staff here and i have a few quick notes we want to say before i introduce daniel tonight. This is a event. It is the Newest Partnership weve have going on for about a year we are hosting events. You can also find us at the other location. We have different events that will be scheduled throughout the city. Now youre in a restaurant and you can order food and drink at the same time. I encourage you to do so. And tweet treat your wait staff while. Please silence your cell phones so we dont have any other necessary interruptions. After its over you can have a signing table and an opportunity to chat with Daniel Hatcher. Also, there is can be time for question and answer and i have this handy microphone right here. If you will raise your hand during that section and i will come around so that everyone can hear the questions and then being asked and also book tv is here tonight from cspan. You can look yourself up on the inter web later. Anyway. So in this eyeopening examination of what happens to medicaid and medicare funds and childsupport payments and other public assistance designed for the ill, the abused andy elderly he exposes how the forprofit agencies themselves benefit from government programs. They offered ways to reform policy so that it does in fact reach its intended beneficiary. They said of this book it is a researched book. Daniel hatcher is professor of law at the university of ultima he teaches civil advocacy clinics. As a staff attorney for legal aid in the baltimore time. Please welcome Daniel Hatcher. [applause] thank you everybody for being here. It is such a beautiful Late Afternoon and early evening to talk about some important policy issues. Thank you to politics and prose. Thank you for the amazing support in publishing this book. I definitely think the university of baltimore, school of law and law and the Clinical Programs there. With honors to teach students. It is amazing and the kids i think my past clients i have learned so much from their stories over the years and what they are going through and from an individual basis of seeing their difficulties and trying to try to understand how their problems connect on a more systemic level. I hope to keep this in formal and have a conversation and i thought i would start with comparison and then back up a little bit with some of the introduction. So in new york on monday and we were talking about a county there. There was a small story about a child whose adoptive mother died of cancer and apparently have Survivor Benefits and a bank account and saved about 16,000. The concern with the press is that the social worker got a hold of the child they had access to the bank account. There is some outrage. It was brought. And that county officials put out press releases to talk about going after this individual. Countywide this is a county that has a contract with the mechanization not just Survivor Benefits but also disability benefits potentially more. The county is taking the money from children in their care when they are acting under a fiduciary relationship. Were talking about tens of tens of thousands of dollars. No one has been up in arms about that because no one has known. My hope through getting this book out is to increase awareness and i think with awareness we have a potential to bring change. So in the Property Industry im hoping to expose and explain several of these revenue practices where space and state Human Service agencies are partnering with come companies. This is happening i think across the country because states are crashed cashstrapped. They are alike across the country. When you see that occurring you end up having the space looking for money elsewhere sort of behindthescenes even to the point where they are using their own agencies to divert funds from the population. I had been looking into these issues for quite a while bold through and some policy advocacy efforts and i think it started for me almost 20 years ago my first job at legal aid was in baltimore city. I represented kids in the foster care system. My first day in court i represented about 16 children in an afternoon. So honestly i still feel some guilt from that time and i feel like i should have done more. But i was awakened to what foster kids were going through in the system and what they were going through before they came into the system and how hard it is for them when they age out of care. In the stats are really lined up against foster children. This was alarming to me when i realized that the very agencies that exist to have foster care children was trying to find the way. Finding a way to seek out disability or Survivor Benefits and take control of those monies as a representative payee and then get those funds. I then started doing some work as well with low income families in Child Support issues including representing fathers which was eyeopening to me with the difficulties as well. They were stationed not only with the Survivor Benefits from children for taking Child Support from children. Sometimes the same children. They go after that. Nebraska as a regulation. And now i drafted it. Even the earnings that were old enough to work. So Child Support that is diverted from the childrens best interests and i started to learn as well about the practices that are occurring with medicaid and even more dollars that is being diverted from the purpose. So i wanted to try to understand and dig in connect these issues as much as i can. With the book i try to step back a bit and see all these connections happening. The alarm that im seeing is you are seeing the shift in State Government and the state Human Service agencies that exist to serve the Public Welfare instead they are turning the focus on maximizing revenue and even hiring companies to help in that process. So, before i want to exit discuss a few of the examples i want to stress a couple of themes that i hope, of the book. The first one is i dont think it provides any evidence for arguments to cut aid to those who need the assistance and the work that ive done it is drastically underfunded and as you have state that governors who are diverting the funds from intended purpose you want to cut the aid or the aid program. The other thing i hope to stress and i want to keep making a point of i think the vast majority of our front line caseworkers in this country are overworked and underpaid trying to do the best they can for their clients. They are not having it on the ground and its much higher at the state agency. They are really directing the practices. To talk a little bit more about this practice of how they are using the foster children. Many states will partner with revenue mac dissemination dash maximization. They started with an assessment contract to do an assessment to look statewide. The children as a Revenue Generating mechanism. From at that time they were increase that number. With the state. When this occurs is not even benefiting fiscally. But the agencies themselves arent getting any more financial capacities. With the agencies that they take from children. Its becoming a selffunded roster care system. And they are still saving state dollars. In addition to going after this they seek out Survivor Benefits. Under the Social Security program. They are earned benefits when we work and pay into the system and also Survivor Benefits if we have to do that after we die. Its much like life insurance. I brewed represented client a former foster child in maryland who have this issue happened him and when he was placed in foster care right after his mother died he was moved around to several different places and couldnt find permanent placement for him. Then his brother dies. They locate his father and his father was a potential resource for him. His family is dying and the Foster Agency realizes they are entitled to a survivor benefit. They never tell him they are applying for the benefit. Then they were taking that. They struggle ever since. To think about conserving it. He never have a drivers license. They might have provided an immense connection to his deceased parents. Not just the money when a parent dies it couldve provided that. Instead the state took it. In many states one of those benefits. The list goes on. And they obtained some contract documents. They are described as the resources on a Conveyor Belt and be described as a units again with the revenue generated mechanism. Its who gets the most money. A goal of increasing the penetration rate of children whose resources can be obtained. Ive seen documents especially concerning as well when they consider which kids to try to determine that. Which kids bring in the most money. Those kids may have other sources of financial aid. Garlands of their condition after they are causing them to spend more money. It is all about the money which unfortunately its not about helping the children. Another example this is just one starting with the bonds. In some states are diverting from intended purpose. You could even have the same foster child. They can also receive in their Schools School schoolbased and medicated to medicated to provide Additional Services and their disabling conditions. I described an example in the book about new jersey where the state forces schools to participate in a program and have a different revenue contract that they are dealing with. They are required to work for the contract. The schools are punished in new jersey if they dont meet the target goals by reduction in School Funding from the state and then went after it. This is how they determine how much money well have the goals. And then the state in their budget items is diverting over 80 of those funds from the schoolchildren to the general state. And then tens of millions of dollars every year. They are literally being taken from poor, disabled schoolchildren to save the state. Like all the states who are unwilling to raise enough revenue and looking for money elsewhere even taking money from disabled schoolchildren. They are selling advertisements. That is another example involving children. The other age into the spectrum are Nursing Homes unfortunately in this country. Theyre not doing very well. The quality of care on average. In some states its much worse than others. Sometimes the richest estate per capitas gets it degraded according to some reports. At that time the district of columbias is doing a little better. Much of it has to do with the Nursing Homes. They have to provide sufficient staff. We have the capacity for better funding. Especially low income older americans. They are often used in some similar strategies in many states will defer to bonds for the intended purpose. There are some municipalities and counties for it. One of the examples i described is out of indiana where its happening like the statewide first. There are multiple revenue finding mechanisms that are loose. They are moved around and is supposed to be a matching grant program. So they spend their percentage max and then they claim the match from the federal government. If it spends 50 you can claim an additional money. It goes for the type of care. What you are seeing that states are moving money around and sometimes they will charge that. And then they get the money back. One way or another so its not actually spending any state funds. That in and of itself is concerning because its loose. What concerns me a lot more is the states that when they claim that federal aid that there diverting it to the general. Indianapolis they have also found a way where the health and Hospital Corporation out of indianapolis its the Municipal Agency they figure out away and started buying up forprofit Nursing Homes. Another all over the state of indiana. They have bought up forprofit Nursing Homes because in india not the way that it works they can trigger higher medicaid. What they are doing is they are buying the licenses for the nursing home and often they were hiding dash make hiring the same licenses back. Its intended for better care. To help the corporation use it to build a multimillion dollar new hospital system. At least that is then that being used for healthcare purposes but that is not the intent. That money for that facility would have normally occurred through property taxes and waste to waive the revenue. They are using older americans. They are trying to take their funds all around the corner of the state. When the northwestern corner of indiana. That is a concern. Finally and then i will pause a bit for questions there are more examples of this occurring in some of them i have the length of space to get involved in the book. But they know about the prison industrial complex. Many of the same contractors who are involved in the military are not actually involved in the poverty industry. They are involved in Child Support services. They used to have the contractor run this Child Support office. They helped the state obtain benefits which the state that will take for the children. As an example of the scope of this poverty industry give agencies right after that they dont have the capacity to monitor their own private contracts and they are hiring private contractors an example of the scope initiated is started in dc. They have a contract to help the district of columbia it something called the doj. There may have been false claims. To the point of a Settlement Agreement with the department of justice. The deferred prosecution agreement was there. Just a short time of that. They get a contract with the state of new york. But after they have the allegations. Then a short time of that they enter new contracts or continuous existing contracts. And this is the same federal agency to which those claims were submitted. Within a short time of that the same Company Lands a contract with the department of justice itself. The agency and the department of justice. And to investigate. During the investigation and prosecution of the criminal cases. The industry is expanding i hope there are some red flags. They are being diverted from those of us that need us the most. It is more of a focus on revenue rex dash maximization. I think a really crucial theme for us we are all vulnerable. We are all interconnected. And with the government and institutions that are supposed to be serving us. We are one paycheck away from poverty. We need to remember when a foster charter is harmed it harms all of us not just from a moral perspective but financially if you think about the finances. They have a harder time when the age out of foster care. More likely to become dependent on the Public Welfare system. The number of former children is just huge. We all pay the cost. Hopefully you will remember all of that. [applause] i think you for being here. But what i have said and i ask about said that i might be in the books nonetheless. We celebrate ten years. When it comes to this i have to ask what do you have to say about the whole idea about most dash most vulnerable versus least vulnerable. I see cities not just one had been reluctant to help homeless adults to remain in the city and find a different way. Is all about supportive housing. I personally think that the constant focus is in some way covered. We want that. We dont want to address the elephant in the room. The fact that it takes 30 an hour to live in dc. We dont want to address the high risk and low wages. Those are opportunities at the federal law that requires in my experience has been it takes a federal law and initiative to make dc do anything better so now we are starting to brainstorm on how to connect there was a lot of nonprofits who would rather keep serving the disabled. They are lifelong cash cows. They will be helped when others would get put into a job and no longer be dependent on the system. See make great comments and questions and you are right. I think we could talk for several days about these issues and its a great discussion. I agree with much if not most of what you said. I guess the start what i think is you alluded to this as well. You are saying that theyre happening and red states and blue states. I hope first, we can all disagree about the best structure its what its all about. Regardless of our politics public aid that develops for the specific purpose. It should be used as attended. They are also not working well. We have a good amount of work with individuals who are there. They are impacted by a lot of the issues. I had worked with a lot of those individuals into Child Support obligations. So not the most politically popular group. But they need assistance and the labels are not accurate. Most individuals are labeled there. Some are in between. This is the Child Support practice is taken from the children and they are forcing port mothers to sue for fathers for money that doesnt even help the children. To look at that. When they have children at a young age. They have potential for the families to work well together. And even if they dont end up living together. But when you force a mother to sue a poor father that will not do much for that relationship. If youve you have a father thats coming out of prison and history to get back on his feet and live above boar