TennCare advocates say grants cut is retaliation

NASHVILLE (AP) — The head of an advocacy group says the organization’s state grant was canceled in retaliation for his criticism of the governor’s plan to cut benefits and enrollees from TennCare.

“There’s no doubt this is retaliation,” said Tony Garr, executive director of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, which runs an outreach program called TennCare for Children to identify children eligible for the health-insurance program.

In a May 2 letter, TennCare Director J.D. Hickey told the Health Care Campaign that he was terminating its three-year grant a year early — a cut of $50,000. With that cut, the group will also lose another $50,000 from a private matching grant, although it will still have some private funding.

In a separate May 2 letter, Hickey told the National Alliance for Mentally Ill of Tennessee that its $100,000 grant would not be extended another year.

Sita Diehl, executive director for NAMI of Tennessee, declined to comment. NAMI, which has also voiced opposition to Gov. Phil Bredesen’s proposed cuts, provides outreach to mentally ill adults in rural parts of the state.

Garr said the cuts show a pattern.

“The reality is, if the state wanted to fund us, they would find the money,” he said. “This is chicken feed in an $8.7 billion budget.”

He cited as evidence of retaliation a handwritten note from TennCare’s director of operations, Gene Grasser. Dated Jan. 11 — a day after Bredesen proposed slashing TennCare by 323,000 adults and reducing benefits for another 396,000 adults — Grasser’s notes from a TennCare “leadership meeting” said, “Review Advocate Contracts — momentum — cut Tony Garr.”

Grasser said the note indicated that reforms were gaining momentum. He jotted down Garr’s name because he recognized Garr’s organization as one of the contracts being reviewed, he said.

“Nobody’s ever been mad at Tony for things he said years ago or today,” Grasser said.

Other TennCare officials said the $150,000 that funds the two grants is more critically needed to help 30,000 mentally ill adults who are slated to lose their TennCare coverage.

“It’s a matter of limited resources and pressing priorities,” said TennCare Assistant Commissioner Patti Killingsworth.

In a run-up to dropping coverage to as many as 323,000 adults this summer, TennCare wants to redirect the money to the TennCare Partners Advocacy Line (TPAL). That agency will beef up its efforts to make personal contact with mentally ill adults losing coverage and to assist them, Killingsworth said.

Whatever the reason for the funding cut, Garr said that if he is unable to replace the lost funds with other grants, the program may have to curtail or cut off its outreach to families who are not aware their children might be eligible for TennCare.

The program, part of a national effort by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, assisted 7,332 Tennessee families in the past year, organizers said.