Markell Selects Health and Social Services Secretary
Gov.-Elect Markell has selected Rita Landgraf as his Secretary of Health and Human Social Services, according to The News Journal.
Landgraf serves as the head of the 172,000-member AARP of Delaware, and co-chaired the Governor’s Commission on Community-Based Alternatives for Persons with Disabilities. She also served as the co-chair of the Governor’s Task Force for Continued Improvement at the Delaware Psychiatric Center, director of The Arc of Delaware and director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Delaware.
Tags: Jack Markell
Don’t be like the News Journal – it’s Health and Social Services.
Her husband has a mile long bio. Interesting choice.
NANCY…..PSA?
PSA is preparing a response to the audit conclusions and recommendations. We hope that the News Journal will entertain us with a meeting similar to the meeting they gave Wagner that resulted in a one-sided smear job.
Airwaves are open to you, as well, Nancy.
Thanks pumpernickel. Fixed. As my wife would say, “I’m not too healthy and I’m far from social, so how would he expect to know.”
Off topic, do you like cream cheese spread all over you?
who doesn’t?
Talk about a great shot over the bow of the Minnerites and the folks with their heads in the sand over DPC.
Well there goes any chance for single payer health care…nice, very nice Jack. Pick a corporate for profit insurance pusher…and what does this woman know about disabilities, elderly, drug addiction, and the array of services all these people need? What does she know about rules and regulations federal or state…zip! Another Merconi in the making.
We should all be disappointed.
Some of us knew all those suits surrounding Jack wouldn’t be good for Delaware!
Nancy you finally raised yor whittle head! You are responding to what? Your responses leading up to the last report were not accepted by the Auditor. If I were you I’d be looking at what the AG is about to present…any day now!
Liz – I know of this woman and where she worked. Certainly AMID/NAMI-DE is reasonably good experience for someone with your interests. Why do you think that she is a corporate know-nothing?
Although, as a geek, I must say that she is regarded by some as one of the least technical people in the state…literally. She is legendary in her lack of savvy in all-things-tech. Hope they don’t have electric pencil sharpeners over at DHSS.
Liz,
I don’t know where she stands on single payer health care and I was not able to locate anything online of work she has done dealing with drug addiction issues, but below is verification has been an advocate for seniors and those with disabilities.
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As far as representing seniors , she has been president of AARP:
http://community.aarp.org/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=rp-de&tid=161
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She has represented people with disabilities through serving as director of ARC of Delaware (where I think she was director for over a decade):
The Arc of Delaware helps people with intellectual disabilities find housing and jobs. The nonprofit has opened 80 group homes in Delaware since 1983. The Home of Your Own program has helped 12 people with intellectual disabilities buy houses while providing financial education courses and mentoring. Others learn how to rent an apartment. The Arc’s 600-plus members include a board of directors, staff, people with intellectual disabilities, professionals in the field and others. People need not be members to receive services. The Arc also lobbies government on behalf of people with disabilities. “The Arc was established by parents, and parents continue to be an integral part of the organization,” says Rita Landgraf, acting executive director. “We continue to look at empowering individuals themselves.”
http://www.delawaretoday.com/Delaware-Today/December-2007/Give-Them-a-Hand/
Liz, I am a member of a group who has to wait for the group. I am in regular contact with the AG, so don’t sound so thrilled. You and I both know that they aren’t giving you any information.
El Somnambulo will only say this once.
He is really getting sick and tired of serious threads (and this is one) being hijacked by local locos with personal scores to settle.
If this site is to realize its potential, then the powers-that-be would do well to find a way to resolve and eliminate the unreadable white noise that appears here far too often.
No, El Somnambulo does not want to act as a censor. But he believes that he is far from the only one who shares this frustration.
Is that a very polite way of saying Nancy and Liz should be muzzled?
El Som – you don’t have to read every comment.
The Arc of Delaware really needs a name change.
When I see it in all caps, as it is sometimes, I think of the American Red Cross.
Plus it doesn’t really make any sense.
Oh where do I begin. Lets see…in 1992 when I uncovered all the abuse and neglect…where was the ARC…silent. In fact some at the ARC accused the parents who were doing the investigation of lying and making crap up. That is until our investigation uncovered the facts which shut all their mouths including Ms. Rita.
NAMI, right an organization that was supposed to advocate for people with mental illness. Just how many times have you ever heard that organization speaking out publicly for their people?
Governors Advisory Committees are a bunch of hype, used by those who want to advance as stepping stones. Fact is…she was a player, just like Protection and Advocacy, Developmental Disabilities Council, Disability Law Project…all of them have been self muzzled and do nothing to help the plight of the people they are supposed to be advocating for. Yes I know her, probably better than all of you. I have no qualms about saying…we are not thrilled with this choice.
ARC’s have a bad reputation nationwide. It was the ARC of Pa, that sued me and my friend for going to County Commissioners, the Feds and the State with the horror in one of the ARC group homes…rape, and sodomy. My case in now in the Supreme Court of PA….don’t tell me about these people…I have walked this walk for 40 years…
Nancy, wake up woman. The AG’s report is coming out any day now…then we will see. You are part of a group allright, a group that has done everything you can to keep the facts from coming out. Too bad…I stand with the Auditor and his report(s)…you stand alone with the rogue board….we will have something for you all in the next few weeks…and lets see if you can be so damn smug.
Rita was one we had to fight to prove that retardation and autism are two distinct, separate disabilities. ARC owns the group home my son lives in, and I can say…they are so lax in up keep its ridiculous. Prior, the private provider owned the home, and we parents fought against the ARC for taking it over, cuz we knew they would never maintain it as well as the private provider.
ARC has been a thorn in the parents of autistic children and adults, because we were always forced to cut the financial pie. People with autism require much more support, therefore more money and funding…ARC was always trying to slice the pie to their benefit. We parents every year make the yearly trek to Dover to try to keep what we have and get more that we need…the State pits one disability group over another in our fight for a tiny slice of the tiny pie..the State funds!
John: She is totally supportive of AARP, a for profit health care option. Its obvious she will not be supporting single payer as she is indoctrinated into the for profit system. Notice she served with Merconi on the Governors Council…a group which never deals with parents of the disabled…they are the stepping stone I mentioned earlier.
Liz,
I am not endorsing her or anything. I have never met her and had not heard of her until recently.
Since Jack Markell is for expanding access to healthcare ,but not single payer, I guess it follows his appointee might not be pushing single payer.
With current fiscal constraints and the vested interests Markell will have to deal with just to increase access to health care, I am wondering if incremental change is currently the best we can hope for.
Here is the link to Jack Markell’s 2008 campaign website page that deals with healthcare:
http://www.markell.org/pdf/Healthcare%20Talking%20Points.pdf
When she was at the Arc her name was Rita Murovani…I think I spelled it correctly. Of course Jack isn’t going for single payer…not with all those Del. State Chamber of Commerce suits surrounding him. They offer a health insurance through Coventry..the absolute worst health insurance in the State. Jack is going for incrementalism…dibs and dabs…but when it doesnt work…and the cuts to Medicaid are so deep perhaps a new leader will come to power who actually has the cahones to take on the corporate elites. Guess Jack hasnt spoken with many doctors/providers in the State yet, because they are supporting single payer. He may yet get overruled.
Many dctors and health care providers in Delaware are supporting single payer? Do you have a list, liz?
Tell you what? The next time you go to your doctor….ask him/her. It is a fact that the Medical Society of Delaware had a meeting with Dr. Floyd McDowell the author of SB 177, and they had a freakin love in. Doctors can no longer afford to hire 3 or 4 staff to deal with all the insurance companies forms, none standarized. Doctors can’t pay the high malpractice insurance costs either. They didnt become doctors to do mounds of paperwork….but to provide health care…and they are sick of lying to their patients because beancounters at the insurance companies are overruling them and their choice of treatment or procedures.
A list…do you have a list of those who don’t support it? You might also consider the now 32 statewide organizations already signed on as well, plus the 18 state legislators.
Liz, I look forward to debating you on the current situtation at PSA. Perhaps a show-down on Matthews’ show?
Who can say what the AG will determine in the future. Nothing is ‘coming soon’, unfortunately for us all.
liz,
You stated a fact, and apparently are unable to back it up. Again. I just asked a question.
The reason I’m curious is because medical professionals are generally pretty big political donors as well. They usually have a little bit more disposable income than the rest of us. So if “many” of them support such a plan, one would think that (a) Tom Savage’s IC campaign, which was a single-issue deal and largely financed with his own money, would have done better, and (b) there’d be a larger groundswell of support, generally speaking.
As for the Medical Society, lots of people can give good meeting. A “love in” isn’t the same as support.
Following on that last, it’s interesting that the “Who we are” link at the Delaware Alliance for Health Care Reform’s page is broken.
anon2…I am assuming you are either KP or her surrogate. Tom Savage had the right plan, but Tom who is a really nice, honest man didn’t deliver it well. He is not a “politican”, just a good man who has worked to help police/fireman get some benefits when none were provided by this wonderful (?) State.
Delaware Alliance has a lot of Astra Zeneca and corporate supporters, many republicans in that group…thats why they state they support a “universal plan”, but never define it.
and the Medical Society….just happen to be the “top people”.
Nancy debate you, what a joke. Debate the auditor general…and as far as the AG you told us last spring there was no AG investigation, were you lying then, or lying now!
Lizzy, you claim to know all the facts. You don’t want to debate?
The AG sent PSA a letter a year ago stating that their investigation was concluded. I can fax it to you if you like.
Really? Because a NJ article I found said its members held a rally earlier this year to support SB 177.
Who is KP? Karen Peterson?
If Delaware’s medical professionals are so behind this plan, as you claim, they would have backed Tom Savage. It’s a pretty simple equation.