Along with Georgia governor Mike Kemp, Mike Pence believes that capitalism drives competition, and competition is good for the market. The problem is, Republicans are treating America’s Medicaid system like a game, with the poorest and sickest among us as the pawns. So far, this risky game has resulted in deaths, complaints, and a public outcry to make Medicaid work again. In Arkansas, citizens became enraged when they heard that a 5-year old boy had died in a hot van. In Georgia - where Southeastrans is based - a breast cancer survivor died after her wheelchair was not secured by her driver. And in Indiana, over HALF of the rides secured by Southeastrans were cancelled, resulting in the formation of a bipartisan oversight commission and an independent audit on behalf of Medicaid clients.  

With control of the Senate riding on just two seats that were too close to call in Georgia, Mike Pence is heading there today to stump in a bus.

But will Georgia welcome him with open arms?  

Most of the country is now aware that Georgia Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler face an important January runoff, a vote so important that it will dictate the majority of the Senate and thus how easily president-elect Joe Biden and his VP Kamala Harris will be able to enact important policies around the environment, civil rights, and Medicaid / Medicare coverage and implementation. This is especially important in Georgia, as it is home of Southeastrans, a company that has been in the news repeatedly due to accidents and negligence caused by the private providers they have contracted for these multi-million dollar state accounts.

Pence can expect to be met with excitement by his Republican buddies in Georgia, as well as their friend Steve Adams, the CEO of Southeastrans.

Adams is so supportive of Pence, Perdue, and Loeffler that he has donated thousands of dollars to their campaign under his own name:

Pence plans to take a "bus tour” through the state, according to the Republican Party of Georgia said. His first stop will be in Canton where he is scheduled to deliver remarks "on the importance of fighting for conservative legislators at a Defend the Majority Rally with Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler," according to the Republicans’ news release. The Rally will take place at the Cherokee Conference Center and, if anything like other rallies held earlier this year, will be a breeding ground for Covid19, which has now killed more than 250,000 Americans, many of whom were young and seemingly healthy.

Pence is not known for choosing the safe route however; as governor of Indiana, the number of deaths due to opioids, heroin, and AIDS shot up, as he did not believe in safe-needle programs. Nor has Pence addressed the thousands of complaints from Americans about the failing Republican attempt at privatizing Medicaid transportation in seven states, where the poorest and sickest are the ones being picked off due to negligence and mismanagement. As Vice President, Pence has paid special attention to the states governed by his buddies, and came to stump in Georgia over the summer for Brian Kemp, who appointed Steve Adams to a special governor’s commission and has accepted $ in campaign funding from him.

Southeastrans has received complaints in their own state of Georgia. 

And in June 2017, a five year-old child died in a van driven by a Southeastrans provider in Arkansas, whose Republican governor had also outsourced their Medicaid transportation system to Southeastrans as well. 

Kemp, Pence, Perdue, and Loeffler are part of the Republican machine in Georgia that gave Medicaid transportation project to the lowest bidder and hoped for the best. This is not how one governs; this is how one gambles.

Will Georgians say to their former VP: Our lives cannot be gambled with?

This largely depends on how loud the families of Medicaid clients who have died or been affected by the contracted work with Southeastrans, and whether more media outlets will cover this important story.

In 2015, reporters with WSB-TV told the story of a woman who died as a result of Georgia’s attempt to privatize Medicaid transportation:

“A Channel 2 Action News investigation discovered companies that shuttle thousands of ill and elderly Georgians to doctors’ appointments every day are exempt from federal safety rules.

A family is now suing Southeastrans, a private company contracted by the Georgia Department of Community Health. Southeastrans and other so called “brokers” are responsible for regulating and inspecting subcontractors who provide non-emergency transportation services for hundreds of thousands of Medicaid and Peach Care for Kids recipients each year.

‘A tragedy. It's to me almost like a Shakespearean play,’ Sharon Bright said of losing her mother, Sylvia Mornay.

Morney was a passenger in one of Southeastrans’ subcontracted vans in Midtown Atlanta leaving a routine doctor’s appointment in 2010. According to court records, the driver of that van suddenly slammed on the brakes while driving on Peachtree Street near Collier Road. The driver hadn't properly secured Mornay's wheelchair and she was thrown to the floor. Two months later she died from those injuries.

Mornay was in Atlanta as a refugee—displaced because Hurricane Katrina had destroyed her home.

‘She survived breast cancer, and then she survived the evacuation and the whole losing everything as far as Hurricane Katrina is concerned,’ Bright told Diamant when he visited her home in New Orleans. ‘It was very difficult, and a lot of times very surreal, to know that we had been through so much and then to have that happen to her in such a fashion.’

Bright said she believes better oversight of Georgia’s Medicaid transportation program could have saved her mother’s life.

The Department of Community Health is contracted to pay Southeastrans more than $17 million a year. The company has its own small fleet of vans and drivers, but 99 percent of the 1.5 million rides it gives each year are done by dozens of subcontractors.

‘This industry affects the most frail of our population, seniors and children,’ said Bright’s attorney Fred Burkey.

Burkey and Bright have already sued and settled with the subcontractor, Drop-4-Care. Burkey believes Southeastrans is also liable for Mornay's death.

‘The industry is not following safety rules and they should be,’ Burkey explained.”

Burkey actually has an entire page dedicated to lawsuits for NEMT Medicaid transportations gone wrong, and says on his site that he fought for and won $1 million in damages when the family of Sylvia Mornay filed a lawsuit against Southeastrans. On a different page headed with the words “Grandmother killed while riding in Southeastrans or Logisticare Van,” the Georgia lawyer provides this information to his fellow citizens: “Riders or their families having problems with a LogistiCare van or a Southeastrans van or who have loved ones injured or killed riding in a Southeastrans van or LogistiCare van may make complaint to the Georgia Department of Community Health at DCH’s telephone number: 404-656-4646 or email at lchristian@dch.gov”

What do you think? Will Georgia be able to fight the greed of the Republican party? Will families affected by this change in Medicaid transportation stand up to power?