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For the most part, western countries who try to prevent their citizens from moving to Syria or Iraq to join ISIL use police force. Now, a Dutch politician wants to cut off student grants and social security payments if they receive evidence that they have joined ISIL but pledges to reinstate their grants if they choose to leave ISIL and come back to live in the Netherlands. I wrote about it for Quartz.
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The US government just awarded a $1.2 billion contract to the outsourcing company Serco to help the United States’ Department of Health and Human Services sift through consumers’ applications for health insurance. Serco is a UK-based company. With the new contract, it plans to hire 1500 people.
This was a story in the New York Times today, and it wasn’t completely ignorable because of two currents running through the country lately. These past few weeks have seen people fretting over the security of their personal data. Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing made sure that everyone was aware of that. Meanwhile, spurring job growth has influenced recent months’ discussions over immigration reform as well as served as a keystone for economic and fiscal policy over the last few years. The recession did us in on that one.
Under Obamacare, states were asked to set up exchanges, or places where individuals and small businesses could shop around for insurance. Some states set them up, and others didn’t, so the federal government is picking up the slack. And they need people to do it. That’s where Serco comes in.
Under the contract, Serco will be in charge of administering incoming applications for health insurance, or operating an exchange. The company will help the Department of Health and Human Services determine who is eligible for health insurance and tax credits. (Tax credits will be given to those people who would have incurred a tax penalty this year for not having been on health insurance.) Some of the tasks will be reviewing and troubleshooting applications, but the bulk of the work, according to the NY Times, will be to digitize all incoming applications and maintaining consumer data. It will also help states with existing exchanges to with their applications.
These applications are important because a some states won’t be expanding Medicaid next year, and large companies are not yet required to offer healthcare coverage to their employees. There will be more than a few of them rolling into Serco’s offices.
The American branch of Serco is based in Reston, VA, and is strategically placed there. They have worked for other parts of the government before, such as the Department of Defense and other intelligence agencies. They control air traffic towers in a few states, and they even review visa applications for the State Department.
Serco is a typical consulting company. They make it easy for other companies to hire and use employees for a short amount of time, without a permanent commitment to employ them. Here in Europe, the European Space Agency counts Serco as one of its largest suppliers of manpower. They contract out their people and services to other organizations.
So, will Serco hire Americans or fly in some of their British and European brethren on H1-B visas to do the dirty work of health insurance administration? One would like to think that 1500 jobs would be created for Americans in the United States, on the one hand, but on the other hand, one would not. Having a job for a limited period of time isn’t the best deal in the world. People should generally be entitled to job security and a chance at career progression. Short-term contracts don’t do them justice, but, hey, a temporary job is better than no job. I would say that it’s ok for consultants to fly in, but make sure they get paid the same rate that an American would in their places.
What do we make of private income and citizenship data becoming available to these companies? So far, no one has had qualms about Serco working in other parts of the government – especially at those “intelligence agencies”. And it seems that foreign companies and employees have been active in the US government outside of Serco. The CGI group has headquarters in Canada. The American Quality Software and Services, Inc., has an Indian branch. Surely, there are security protocols that these companies follow in order to keep Americans’ information safe. And if not, then we can count on whistleblowers to hold companies accountable for invading our privacy (That might hinge on whether Snowden is accused of spying.).
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