“Colonial Mentality Contracting” is why the DC Government has not been unable to write a Medicaid MCO contract that can pass a judges’s scrutiny. After multiple amateurish tries and no responsible DC Council oversight, DCHCF has repeatedly failed over the past 3 years to competently direct the $1.5 billion Medicaid taxpayer money to the right White corporate collaborators. Wayne Turnage has once again managed to make a mess of Black healthcare with the help of Melissa Byrd as deputy director for Medicaid. She followed another know-nothing-about-health-care for Black folks lawyer named Claudia Schlosberg who was fired in 2018.

To truly understand why African Americans in DC are trapped in such a dire mental health death spiral, substance use treatment failures, and systemic medical incompetence one must 1st be able to rationally explain, for example, the attached organizational chart enigma at DBH. In the “Colonial” construct, Director Barbara Bazeron is simply the titular “House Negro” face. Under her are a plethora of white money men like Richard Debolts whose job is to write contracts and fashion non-sensical RFPs that will go to their community friends, academic institutions, and political cronies. In a similar manner, Turnage does the same thru his Medicaid Director: They never talk about direct medical SERVICES & OUTCOMES with successful, experienced BLACK COMMUNITY PROVIDERs: It’s “ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS!”

On the other hand these white organizations always present themselves in “BlackFace” to the community and at Council hearings: e.g. MedStar (Leslie Lyles Smith), CareFirst (Kenny Greene), AmeriGroup (Linda Elam), or AmeriHealth (Karen Dale). The real power brokers and decision makers are ALL ANONYMOUS (often out-of-town) WHITE MONEY CHANGERS.

The game’s the same … only the bullshit faces change! Check out the DBH chart below. If Black folks are ever to truly be free we must 1st deal with the “enemy within” who give our precious assets to the oppressor (Bowser, Fenty, Anthony Williams, Gray, Turnage, Mendelson, et al): All suck on the same tit!

Edwin C Chapman, MD, DABIM, FASAM
“Them’s that SAY don’t know and them’s that KNOW won’t say”