Editorials

He's crossed the line

The good, the bad, and the unacceptable

The great advantage of having citizen-legislators is that they can bring the knowledge and experience they've acquired over the years in their private capacities to bear in furthering the public interest.

The great disadvantage of having citizen-legislators is that some yield to the temptation to use their public office to advance their private interest.

Last week's case in point: Dan Sullivan is (a) a state representative from Jonesboro, and (b) chief operating officer of one of the state's largest providers of health services to children. Not necessarily in that order. For he's just filed a bill to eliminate one of the state's measures of how effectively companies like his are serving the needs of children who depend on them to provide health services.

Mr. Sullivan's bill was clearly the conflict-of-interest of the day, and maybe of the whole legislative session so far. But he says not to worry. The state may have collected a lot of data about how well the kids enrolled in private services like his are doing, but it hasn't used that data to help guide the 45 health providers it monitors. So why not just forget about collecting it, and save all the trouble and expense it takes to gather it?

But the state's Department of Human Services says such checks are a necessary part of the system designed to hold companies like Dan Sullivan's accountable. Which sounds like a typically vague defense offered by any bureaucracy when one of its practices is questioned. If all that information really is being ignored, the better response is to see that it's used to influence policy the right way, not to just stop collecting it.

Editorial on 01/27/2015

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