Company protests Medicaid contract

Lanier Cansler's involvement in the successful bid for a multimillion-dollar Medicaid processing system should disqualify the company that won the job, according to competitor Electronic Data Systems.

EDS held a 'protest meeting' in Raleigh today where lawyers and EDS executives laid out their case to why the state should not have awarded a $265.2 million contract to its competitor Computer Sciences Corp., Lynn Bonner reports.

Cansler, now Health and Human Services secretary, was a registered lobbyist for CSC for a year before he took his new state job. His former company, Cansler-Fuquay Solutions, was also part of CSC's bid, with the company proposing to use Cansler-Fuquay while the billing system is being installed. The company is identified as a permanent hire for the project.

The request for proposals forbids bidders from using former DHHS executives or consultants who did work related to the company selection, EDS argued.

Cansler-Fuquay's involvement was one of nine reasons EDS gave to support its contention that state's decision to give the contract to CSC should be overturned.

More after the jump.

————— 

The protest meeting does not mean EDS has actually filed a protest, but it preserves the company's right to do so.

In an interview today, Cansler repeated his intention wall himself off from consideration of the EDS action.

No one at the agency is allowed to talk to him about it.

Even if former business partner Gary Fuquay is still working on the CSC project, Cansler said it won't stop him from expecting the best from CSC.

"My legacy in this department the next four years may very likely be my ability to accomplish our goals in mental health, and my ability to get a few — a couple — big  IT systems in place," the Medicaid billing system being one of them.

"I am not about to, for any reason, not push as hard as I can and hold people accountable and get that job done. I don't care if it's the state, and I don't care if it's the vendors, and I don't think Gary Fuquay would expect me to be any other way."