If the latest scheme becomes law, no matter how abominably agencies allow the children in their care to be treated, and how much that jacks up their insurance premiums, they need never change, secure in the knowledge that taxpayers will pick up the tab.
When state legislators started easing statutes of limitations to allow child abuse survivors to sue, the lawmakers probably had in mind institutions like churches, the Boy Scouts, etc. But it should have come as no surprise that a great many lawsuits have targeted private foster care agencies, because so very many children were abused on their watch (in the name of “child protection,” “child safety,” and “erring on the side of the child,” of course).
Particularly vulnerable: agencies running the worst form of “care” – group homes and institutions. As a result, their insurance premiums have skyrocketed. Some agencies even had to close.
Here’s the most important thing to understand: Private agencies that run group homes and institutions having to shut down is not a crisis or a calamity. On the contrary, it’s great news! As I posted two years ago:
The group homes and institutions are harmful even when they´re not rife with physical and sexual abuse. The whole model is a proven failure, and there are far better alternatives. But these giant, greedy, well-connected agencies are scarfing up all the money for such alternatives. (And when I say greedy: Have you seen Ron Richter´s salary for running one of them?)
[Update: he’s left, but continues to ally with those wedded to a take-the-child-and-run approach to child welfare.]
But the agencies are doing what they do best: predicting that horrible calamities will befall children unless they get some kind of bailout and/or near immunity from accountability to all those children horrifically abused on their watch.
Two years ago, California agencies predicted foster children would suddenly be homeless if they had to close. I explain here why that is nonsense. Sice them, at least 19 California agencies reportedly have closed, and yet the counties that run child welfare in California apparently are coping just fine. It helps, of course, that California has been safely and steadily reducing the number of children torn from their families in the first place.
Nevertheless, California fell for the fearmongering, at least in part. So far, New York has not.
But according to Insurance Business, an insurance industry trade publication, those greedy agencies are trying again. This time, they’ve gotten at least two lawmakers to introduce a bill to provide a so-called $20-million “bridge fund.” Worse, the bill would require the state agency that sets rates for these places to make absolutely positively sure the rates are set so high they cover the entire cost of insurance.
This is a backdoor bailout. Under this provision, no matter how abominably agencies allow the children in their care to be treated, and how much that jacks up their insurance premiums, they need never change, secure in the knowledge that taxpayers will pick up the tab.
And if anyone needs another reminder of why that’s a bad idea, check out this lawsuit settlement in California – in a case where, one would have thought, the private agency would have been especially vigilant.
Image from Easy Peasy AI
