motherjones--2020-02-17--How Do You Get from the Trailer Park to a White House Job? Give Money to Trump’s Spiritual Adviser.

On a Friday morning in February , televangelist Paula White-Cain spent more than two hours preaching at the King Jesus church Supernatural Ministry School in Miami .
With top billing on the event website as “ Donald Trump ’ s spiritual adviser , ” White stood in front of a stage with a light show befitting a Pink Floyd cover band .
With a sanctuary that holds 7,000 people , one of the nation ’ s largest Latino churches was packed with “ apostles ” and “ prophets ” who ’ d come to be “ activated in God ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expand their ministry .
“ They called me trailer trash , ” White said , as an interpreter in a blue track suit jacket translated her words into Spanish .
“ But our God ’ s in the recycling business.
” With her husband , the keyboardist for Journey , providing a stirring backtrack , White testified about her own rags-to-riches tale , starting with her humble roots in Tupelo , Mississippi , her father ’ s suicide , her out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy , her years working her way up from janitor to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ God kept opening doors until eventually , 19 years ago , I get a phone call out of the blue , from this man named Donald Trump , ” she said , recalling the day in 2002 when the twice-divorced New York real estate mogul reached out to her after catching her show on a local Florida TV station .
“ He said , ‘ You ’ re fantastic.
’ He said , ‘ You have the ‘ it ’ factor.
’ I said , ‘ Sir , we call that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lord told her to help Trump know God .
“ I took on that assignment never knowing that one day that man that God told me to show him who He was would become the president of the United States of America , ” she told the crowd , which cheered with enthusiasm .
As one of the only women in the male-dominated world of TV preachers , White long ago reached evangelical celebrity status , publishing nearly a dozen books , launching a successful TV show , and ministering to everyone from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York Yankees .
But she has now accomplished something no other televangelist has ever achieved : a job in the White House .
Since the end of October , she has served as the adviser to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative , which Trump created through an executive order in 2018 , as part of the White House Office of Public Liaison .
As such , her official duties entail consulting with the faith community on such social issues as poverty and crime prevention and making recommendations to the White House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she ’ s working in the White House doesn ’ t mean White has quit her day jobs .
To the contrary , since her appointment , White has continued to preach at her own Florida megachurch .
She ’ s promoted a new book , Something Greater : Finding Triumph Over Trials .
Her TV show “ Paula Today ” airs five days a week , and she makes numerous public speaking appearances , many of which involve asking people for as much money as they can possibly spare—often even more .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and private jobs is nearly seamless , as she invokes her relationship with Trump in her sermons and fundraising pitches , even as she wields her spiritual authority to defend the president .
But experts say the arrangement raises significant conflict of interest questions , concerns about her compliance with tax laws banning nonprofit churches from endorsing candidates .
And there ’ s the more fundamental question as to whether by installing her in a White House job , Trump has put the government ’ s stamp of approval on a religious ministry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vulnerable people for money .
“ If she is formally working on the White House staff and continuing to raise money and do other activities for her church , she creates the appearance of using her public position for personal gain , ” says Fred Wertheimer , president of Democracy 21 , a nonprofit government watchdog group , noting that it ’ s a common theme in the Trump administration , which isn ’ t likely to object .
“ If the president believes in using public office for private gain , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hold people accountable for doing it ?
When it comes to proper conduct by executive branch officials , the Trump presidency is a lawless one.
” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham says that White ’ s non-government work is all above board .
She is a part-time “ special government employee , ” a classification that allows her to continue her outside employment while working for the White House , Grisham says , noting that White is not taking a salary and that she ’ s gone through “ initial ethics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confidential financial disclosure form .
“ She works closely with [ the White House Counsel ’ s Office ] to ensure compliance with all government ethics rules related to her outside positions , ” Grisham said in an email .
White did not respond to questions for this story submitted to her publicist or through her ministry website .
Robert Weissman , president of the nonprofit good-government group Public Citizen , says that White ’ s position is reminiscent of the arrangement that billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn had in 2017 , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on regulatory reform despite huge conflicts of interest from his oil business , which he continued to run during his brief stint in the White House .
( Icahn was forced to leave the post because of the conflicts . )
But White ’ s conflicts are even murkier .
“ If she were purely a businessperson like Carl Icahn , you can identify the financial conflicts of interest .
If she were a person from a purely advocacy point of view , you could object to the ideology , but as an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing wrong , ” Weissman says .
“ For her , religion is a business , so you worry about how she ’ s trying to leverage the official White House position to advance her business interests and how her business interests might influence what she does in the White House.
” At the Supernatural Ministry School , White deftly offered the audience the secret of her success .
“ How did I get to the White House from the trailer ?
” she asked .
The answer , of course , was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the church—and she ’ s not talking about tossing the weekly pin money in the offering plate .
Securing Paula White , White House-caliber blessings would require students of the supernatural to give a “ First Fruits ” offering , one that is significant—the first week ’ s pay , say , or even the first month ’ s pay—to signify putting God first in everything .
White claimed during the sermon that God once told her that in 2009 , a particularly bad year , she needed to give her entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She broke it all down for her congregants , making it simple : If they prioritize their paychecks for more earthly needs , like keeping the lights on , they were treating Florida Power and Light ( FPL ) like God himself .
“ Instead of writing [ that check ] to the house of God as I ’ m instructed to , then what I ’ m saying spiritually is , ‘ FPL , I have now established a spiritual law that put you first .
So , FPL , save @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drug addicted son .
FPL , kill this cancer that doctors say is in my body.
’ ” Over the next half hour , White built to a crescendo , shed many tears , spoke in tongues , and implored people to give .
Hundreds of people streamed down the aisles to throw envelopes of money at her feet .
“ The First Fruits sets the pattern and establishes the destiny for what is left , ” she cried .
“ Many of you need to bring a First Fruit offering right now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the church brought baskets to the front to collect the offerings .
No one from King Jesus responded to questions from Mother Jones about where the donations went .
White is not part of any religious denomination .
She ’ s often linked to the New Apostolic Reformation , a loose association of charismatic and Pentecostal churches that , like King Jesus , focus on the supernatural and anoint their own prophets and apostles .
But White is better known as a purveyor of the prosperity gospel , a Christian theology that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and wealth .
Prosperity preachers like White are a special breed of evangelical Christians , and they are not the majority .
Many more mainstream evangelical leaders believe White ’ s ministry , with its explicit form of spiritual extortion , is not just distasteful but heretical .
“ Paula White is a charlatan and recognized as a heretic by every orthodox Christian , of whatever tribe , ” tweeted the prominent evangelical preacher Russell Moore , the president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention , back in 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blend of intimate self-help and focus on material success as evidence of God ’ s blessings , struck a chord with Trump long ago .
They have a lot in common .
Like the president , White is twice-divorced , with a history of marital infidelities and bankruptcy , but possessing remarkable TV savvy .
They first connected in that fateful 2002 phone call , not long after White had launched her first TV show and her career was taking off .
Trump called to tell White he ’ d been watching her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ fantastic.
” Thus began a long relationship that included White gifting him a Bible for his 60th birthday in 2006 that was signed by the late , legendary minister Billy Graham .
That same year , he appeared on her TV show to promote his latest book , Why We Want You to Be Rich .
The year before , White bought a $ 3.5 million condo in Trump ’ s Park Avenue building .
When Trump first considered a presidential run in 2011 , he sought White ’ s counsel .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the right timing , ” she told him .
The timing was obviously right in 2015 , when Trump did decide to run for president .
In Something Greater , she writes that he asked her to be a bridge to the evangelical community , a critical voting bloc that was far from being supportive of his candidacy .
His perceived moral failings—the many wives , the notorious womanizing , his unapologetic vulgarity—all added up to the support of only 3 percent of evangelical leaders and “ insiders ” surveyed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When Trump appeared in 2015 at the big Christian Right confab in DC , the Values Voter Summit , he got booed .
White describes how she helped improve his standing by creating an evangelical advisory council for the campaign , made up mostly of other televangelists like her , including Franklin Graham , son of the late Billy Graham , and Robert Jeffress , the controversial Dallas megachurch pastor who in 2012 , told evangelicals not to vote for Mitt Romney because , as a Mormon , Romney wasn ’ t a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ schooled Trump ’ s son-in-law Jared Kushner—an Orthodox Jew whom she describes as “ quite brilliant—on the “ evangelical landscape.
” Later , when Trump appeared headed toward the GOP nomination , White helped organize a meeting for him with more mainstream evangelical leaders who still had many reservations about his moral character , not to mention concerns about the televangelists he had assembled who were not their natural compatriots .
Most of them fell into line , and after Trump became the GOP nominee , White was on hand to give the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Republican National Convention .
After he was elected with the support of more than 80 percent of white evangelical voters , White gave the invocation at his inauguration , becoming the first clergywoman to do so , though not the first televangelist .
Since Trump ’ s election , White has helped ensure a steady stream of fringe evangelicals and prosperity preachers into the White House .
But it ’ s not clear what exactly she ’ s been doing to fulfill her governmental duties since her October appointment to the faith @ @ @ @ @ @ @ convened about 50 evangelicals at the White House for a special briefing that included appearances from Ivanka Trump , Vice President Mike Pence , and Trump himself , upon whom they laid hands and prayed in the Oval Office in the hopes of delivering him from impeachment .
But if she ’ s influencing the Domestic Policy Council on prisoner reentry or humanitarian aid , as required by Trump ’ s executive order creating her position , the evidence of her work is hard to see .
What is much easier to see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her White House perch .
Pete Evans is the lead investigator with the nonprofit Trinity Foundation , a Christian watchdog group that keeps tabs on televangelists and their spending habits and advocates for people who ’ ve been duped by them into giving over their last dime .
“ There ’ s no question that her position with the White House enhances her position and her profile across the country with regard to the increasing her viewership , ” he says , “ increasing her income that comes into her organization.
” Much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the umbrella of the Paula White Ministries , the name she uses on her website and in fundraising appeals .
But legally , Paula White Ministries is just another name for her home church , the City of Destiny Church in Apokpa , Florida , for which she is listed on corporate documents as president .
Federal law bars churches from endorsing political candidates .
Doing so can result in their losing their tax-exempt status .
Yet White ’ s promotion of Trump now infuses many aspects of her ostensibly nonprofit ministry , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slowed since her official White House appointment .
Last May , White said she would be stepping down as senior pastor at City of Destiny and handing the reins over to her son , Bradley Knight .
But White still preaches there regularly—she ’ s on deck for a “ power night ” at the church on February 16 , with her rock star husband Jonathan Cain .
In April , she ’ ll be hosting a free , three-day conference there called “ Unleashed , ” that promises attendees an opportunity to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , some of whom are also in Trump ’ s inner circle .
The Paula White Ministries website is replete with videos of the televangelist with Trump , or of her on TV shows talking about her relationship with Trump , and cheerleading his policies .
She even issued a statement supporting his signing of a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada .
After Trump became the first president to personally address the anti-abortion March for Life in January , White wrote on her website , “ May the grace of God @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his courageous stance for the dignity of all life.
” While preaching at a church in California , she said that her access to Trump had allowed her to anoint the White House as “ holy ground.
” Last summer , another Trump-supporting televangelist , Franklin Graham , called for a special national day of prayer on June 2 to pray for President Trump , which White promoted on her website .
She solicited prayer commitments from her fans and promised to personally “ take your name to the White House and let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him and his family.
” Just out of curiosity , I recently made a prayer request through her website , asking her to pray for a family member .
I got an email in return promising that White and her prayer intercessors would “ deploy the Blood of Jesus on your behalf for your peace.
” White also thanked me for “ agreeing to pray for President Trump and his family on June 2nd.
” Apparently , the form letter hasn ’ t been updated since last summer .
Less than an hour @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White asking me to send her a “ favor seed ” of $ 50 or more so that she could “ Activate supernatural favor ” on my behalf .
“ Favor will make you a household name overnight , ” she writes knowingly .
Even as she ’ s running a nonprofit religious ministry and working a government job , White is once again front and center at many of Trump ’ s campaign rallies .
On January 3 , she introduced Trump at the Evangelicals for Trump coalition campaign rally at King @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that hosted the Supernatural Ministry School .
She told the same story about Trump , too , only this time , instead of rock-concert lighting , the backdrop consisted of American flags , and she stood behind a podium emblazoned with the official presidential seal .
C-Span identified her on TV as the “ White House spiritual adviser.
” People in the audience cheered , “ Four more years !
” “ When religion and politics get mixed that ’ s a huge red flag for us , ” says Evans .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for nonprofits .
They ’ re not supposed to get involved in politics or they risk losing their nonprofit status.
” Questions about the nonprofit status of White ’ s ministries have come up long before she became a regular fixture at the White House .
In 2007 , White became one of six televangelists investigated by the Senate Finance Committee for potential abuses of their church nonprofit status .
Unlike ordinary nonprofits , churches are not required to disclose any of their financial information to the public or the IRS , making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abuses .
Among other things , a Senate report found that White ’ s personal ministry and the church she ran with her now ex-husband used tax-exempt ministry funds to pay nearly $ 900,000 one year for the Whites ’ waterfront mansion .
It paid over a million dollars in salaries to family members and kept the Whites in the air with a private jet .
White and her church refused to cooperate with the investigation and in 2011 , Sen. Charles Grassley ( R-Iowa ) , issued a report outlining the committee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action .
White ’ s church declared bankruptcy in 2014 after defaulting on $ 29 million in loans from an evangelical credit union .
In 2011 , amid controversy , she became senior pastor at the predominantly black City of Destiny—then known as New Destiny Christian Center—after its former pastor died of a drug overdose .
One of the problems with having White working in the White House , Evans notes , is that the agency charged with policing nonprofit churches like hers is the IRS , which Trump oversees as president .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ promises to evangelicals in exchange for their campaign support is that he would help abolish the Johnson Amendment , the 1950s-era tax code provision that prohibits churches from endorsing political candidates .
In 2017 , he issued an executive order attempting to scale back its enforcement by the IRS .
“ When your boss is head of all government agencies , including the IRS , you ’ re really not risking anything ” by cheerleading for the president ’ s reelection campaign , Evans says .
“ It really is a huge conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she moved toward the ecstatic conclusion of her sermon at the Miami Supernatural School , White told the crowd , “ I told you about the trailer to the White House because I ’ m not here by coincidence.
” She urged people to pay up so she could begin the laying of hands .
“ You can ’ t just bring a gratitude offering .
It has to be a First Fruits offering !
If it is one week ’ s salary , if it ’ s a month .
If it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s got to be the whole of something .
Quickly !
Bring it up—do you need an envelope ?
” she said , directing people to give the First Fruits to the apostles holding baskets .
Others , whose gratitude offering was more meagre , should toss theirs on the floor .
“ God ’ s about to do something !
” White announced .
Before Trump held his January campaign rally at King Jesus , the church leader and Trump supporter , Pastor Guillermo Maldonado , had to issue a special announcement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be deported if they came to the rally—an indication of the church ’ s demographics .
As the bilingual sermon rose to a climax , White gave a performance that gives a whole new meaning to Ronald Reagan ’ s nine most terrifying words in the English language : “ I ’ m from the government and I ’ m here to help.
” When every last dime seemed to have been wrung from the audience , White invited all the “ barren ” women in the room who desired children to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fruitfulness is getting ready to hit this house .
God ’ s about to open your natural womb .
God ’ s gon na open barren places.
” She told a story about helping a woman in Hawaii with no uterus and no fallopian tubes give birth .
Then she moved to each hopeful woman—some of whom were infertile , others who struggled with repeated miscarriages—and held their hands or touched her belly , telling one that she ’ d no longer miscarry .
One woman fell on the floor .
Others cried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and spoke in tongues .
“ Holy , holy , holy , hallelujah , ” she cried , and then held a basket of money up high .
“ It is blessed !
” When it was over , White held a book signing for her newest book release , Something Greater , which is all about her relationship with God .
But Something Greater , of course , is really all about her relationship with Trump .
His name is mentioned 177 times in 288 pages .
Jesus merits just 82 .

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
On a Friday morning in February, televangelist Paula White-Cain spent more than two hours preaching at the King Jesus church Supernatural Ministry School in Miami. With top billing on the event website as “Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser,” White stood in front of a stage with a light show befitting a Pink Floyd cover band. With a sanctuary that holds 7,000 people, one of the nation’s largest Latino churches was packed with “apostles” and “prophets” who’d come to be “activated in God’s supernatural power” and learn to expand their ministry.
“They called me trailer trash,” White said, as an interpreter in a blue track suit jacket translated her words into Spanish. “But our God’s in the recycling business.” With her husband, the keyboardist for Journey, providing a stirring backtrack, White testified about her own rags-to-riches tale, starting with her humble roots in Tupelo, Mississippi, her father’s suicide, her out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy, her years working her way up from janitor to Sunday school teacher at a Maryland church.
“God kept opening doors until eventually, 19 years ago, I get a phone call out of the blue, from this man named Donald Trump,” she said, recalling the day in 2002 when the twice-divorced New York real estate mogul reached out to her after catching her show on a local Florida TV station. “He said, ‘You’re fantastic.’ He said, ‘You have the ‘it’ factor.’ I said, ‘Sir, we call that the anointing.’” White said the Lord told her to help Trump know God. “I took on that assignment never knowing that one day that man that God told me to show him who He was would become the president of the United States of America,” she told the crowd, which cheered with enthusiasm.
“God kept opening doors until eventually, 19 years ago, I get a phone call out of the blue, from this man named Donald Trump.”
As one of the only women in the male-dominated world of TV preachers, White long ago reached evangelical celebrity status, publishing nearly a dozen books, launching a successful TV show, and ministering to everyone from the late Michael Jackson to the New York Yankees. But she has now accomplished something no other televangelist has ever achieved: a job in the White House. Since the end of October, she has served as the adviser to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which Trump created through an executive order in 2018, as part of the White House Office of Public Liaison. As such, her official duties entail consulting with the faith community on such social issues as poverty and crime prevention and making recommendations to the White House Domestic Policy Council.
But just because she’s working in the White House doesn’t mean White has quit her day jobs. To the contrary, since her appointment, White has continued to preach at her own Florida megachurch. She’s promoted a new book, Something Greater: Finding Triumph Over Trials. Her TV show “Paula Today” airs five days a week, and she makes numerous public speaking appearances, many of which involve asking people for as much money as they can possibly spare—often even more.
The melding of White’s public and private jobs is nearly seamless, as she invokes her relationship with Trump in her sermons and fundraising pitches, even as she wields her spiritual authority to defend the president. But experts say the arrangement raises significant conflict of interest questions, concerns about her compliance with tax laws banning nonprofit churches from endorsing candidates. And there’s the more fundamental question as to whether by installing her in a White House job, Trump has put the government’s stamp of approval on a religious ministry that includes faith healing and preying on vulnerable people for money.
“If she is formally working on the White House staff and continuing to raise money and do other activities for her church, she creates the appearance of using her public position for personal gain,” says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit government watchdog group, noting that it’s a common theme in the Trump administration, which isn’t likely to object. “If the president believes in using public office for private gain, who is he or anyone in this administration to hold people accountable for doing it? When it comes to proper conduct by executive branch officials, the Trump presidency is a lawless one.”
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham says that White’s non-government work is all above board. She is a part-time “special government employee,” a classification that allows her to continue her outside employment while working for the White House, Grisham says, noting that White is not taking a salary and that she’s gone through “initial ethics training.” She has also filed a confidential financial disclosure form. “She works closely with [the White House Counsel’s Office] to ensure compliance with all government ethics rules related to her outside positions,” Grisham said in an email. White did not respond to questions for this story submitted to her publicist or through her ministry website.
Robert Weissman, president of the nonprofit good-government group Public Citizen, says that White’s position is reminiscent of the arrangement that billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn had in 2017, when Trump appointed him as a presidential adviser on regulatory reform despite huge conflicts of interest from his oil business, which he continued to run during his brief stint in the White House. (Icahn was forced to leave the post because of the conflicts.) But White’s conflicts are even murkier.
“If she were purely a businessperson like Carl Icahn, you can identify the financial conflicts of interest. If she were a person from a purely advocacy point of view, you could object to the ideology, but as an ethics matter, there would really be nothing wrong,” Weissman says. “For her, religion is a business, so you worry about how she’s trying to leverage the official White House position to advance her business interests and how her business interests might influence what she does in the White House.”
At the Supernatural Ministry School, White deftly offered the audience the secret of her success. “How did I get to the White House from the trailer?” she asked. The answer, of course, was by giving money to God by way of the church—and she’s not talking about tossing the weekly pin money in the offering plate. Securing Paula White, White House-caliber blessings would require students of the supernatural to give a “First Fruits” offering, one that is significant—the first week’s pay, say, or even the first month’s pay—to signify putting God first in everything. White claimed during the sermon that God once told her that in 2009, a particularly bad year, she needed to give her entire annual salary to God—$8 million.
She broke it all down for her congregants, making it simple: If they prioritize their paychecks for more earthly needs, like keeping the lights on, they were treating Florida Power and Light (FPL) like God himself. “Instead of writing [that check] to the house of God as I’m instructed to, then what I’m saying spiritually is, ‘FPL, I have now established a spiritual law that put you first. So, FPL, save my family, FPL, deliver my drug addicted son. FPL, kill this cancer that doctors say is in my body.’”
Over the next half hour, White built to a crescendo, shed many tears, spoke in tongues, and implored people to give. Hundreds of people streamed down the aisles to throw envelopes of money at her feet. “The First Fruits sets the pattern and establishes the destiny for what is left,” she cried. “Many of you need to bring a First Fruit offering right now!” Mostly Latino apostles and prophets from the church brought baskets to the front to collect the offerings. No one from King Jesus responded to questions from Mother Jones about where the donations went.
“The First Fruits sets the pattern and establishes the destiny for what is left. Many of you need to bring a First Fruit offering right now!”
White is not part of any religious denomination. She’s often linked to the New Apostolic Reformation, a loose association of charismatic and Pentecostal churches that, like King Jesus, focus on the supernatural and anoint their own prophets and apostles. But White is better known as a purveyor of the prosperity gospel, a Christian theology that says faith and donations will bring health and wealth. Prosperity preachers like White are a special breed of evangelical Christians, and they are not the majority.
Many more mainstream evangelical leaders believe White’s ministry, with its explicit form of spiritual extortion, is not just distasteful but heretical. “Paula White is a charlatan and recognized as a heretic by every orthodox Christian, of whatever tribe,” tweeted the prominent evangelical preacher Russell Moore, the president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, back in 2016 during the presidential campaign. Yet her blend of intimate self-help and focus on material success as evidence of God’s blessings, struck a chord with Trump long ago.
They have a lot in common. Like the president, White is twice-divorced, with a history of marital infidelities and bankruptcy, but possessing remarkable TV savvy. They first connected in that fateful 2002 phone call, not long after White had launched her first TV show and her career was taking off. Trump called to tell White he’d been watching her show at Mar-a-Lago and that she was “fantastic.” Thus began a long relationship that included White gifting him a Bible for his 60th birthday in 2006 that was signed by the late, legendary minister Billy Graham. That same year, he appeared on her TV show to promote his latest book, Why We Want You to Be Rich. The year before, White bought a $3.5 million condo in Trump’s Park Avenue building. When Trump first considered a presidential run in 2011, he sought White’s counsel. “I don’t think it’s the right timing,” she told him.
The timing was obviously right in 2015, when Trump did decide to run for president. In Something Greater, she writes that he asked her to be a bridge to the evangelical community, a critical voting bloc that was far from being supportive of his candidacy. His perceived moral failings—the many wives, the notorious womanizing, his unapologetic vulgarity—all added up to the support of only 3 percent of evangelical leaders and “insiders” surveyed by WORLD magazine in July that year. When Trump appeared in 2015 at the big Christian Right confab in DC, the Values Voter Summit, he got booed.
White describes how she helped improve his standing by creating an evangelical advisory council for the campaign, made up mostly of other televangelists like her, including Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, and Robert Jeffress, the controversial Dallas megachurch pastor who in 2012, told evangelicals not to vote for Mitt Romney because, as a Mormon, Romney wasn’t a real Christian. White says she even schooled Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—an Orthodox Jew whom she describes as “quite brilliant”—on the “evangelical landscape.”
Later, when Trump appeared headed toward the GOP nomination, White helped organize a meeting for him with more mainstream evangelical leaders who still had many reservations about his moral character, not to mention concerns about the televangelists he had assembled who were not their natural compatriots. Most of them fell into line, and after Trump became the GOP nominee, White was on hand to give the prime-time benediction on the opening night of the Republican National Convention. After he was elected with the support of more than 80 percent of white evangelical voters, White gave the invocation at his inauguration, becoming the first clergywoman to do so, though not the first televangelist.
Since Trump’s election, White has helped ensure a steady stream of fringe evangelicals and prosperity preachers into the White House. But it’s not clear what exactly she’s been doing to fulfill her governmental duties since her October appointment to the faith initiative. In early December, she convened about 50 evangelicals at the White House for a special briefing that included appearances from Ivanka Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump himself, upon whom they laid hands and prayed in the Oval Office in the hopes of delivering him from impeachment. But if she’s influencing the Domestic Policy Council on prisoner reentry or humanitarian aid, as required by Trump’s executive order creating her position, the evidence of her work is hard to see. What is much easier to see is how her ministry has benefitted from her White House perch.
“There’s no question that her position with the White House enhances her position and her profile across the country with regard to the increasing her viewership, increasing her income that comes into her organization.”
Pete Evans is the lead investigator with the nonprofit Trinity Foundation, a Christian watchdog group that keeps tabs on televangelists and their spending habits and advocates for people who’ve been duped by them into giving over their last dime. “There’s no question that her position with the White House enhances her position and her profile across the country with regard to the increasing her viewership,” he says, “increasing her income that comes into her organization.”
Much of White’s empire falls under the umbrella of the Paula White Ministries, the name she uses on her website and in fundraising appeals. But legally, Paula White Ministries is just another name for her home church, the City of Destiny Church in Apokpa, Florida, for which she is listed on corporate documents as president. Federal law bars churches from endorsing political candidates. Doing so can result in their losing their tax-exempt status. Yet White’s promotion of Trump now infuses many aspects of her ostensibly nonprofit ministry, which doesn’t seem to have slowed since her official White House appointment.
Last May, White said she would be stepping down as senior pastor at City of Destiny and handing the reins over to her son, Bradley Knight. But White still preaches there regularly—she’s on deck for a “power night” at the church on February 16, with her rock star husband Jonathan Cain. In April, she’ll be hosting a free, three-day conference there called “Unleashed,” that promises attendees an opportunity to hear from her and other evangelical preachers, some of whom are also in Trump’s inner circle.
The Paula White Ministries website is replete with videos of the televangelist with Trump, or of her on TV shows talking about her relationship with Trump, and cheerleading his policies. She even issued a statement supporting his signing of a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada. After Trump became the first president to personally address the anti-abortion March for Life in January, White wrote on her website, “May the grace of God continue to shine on President Trump for his courageous stance for the dignity of all life.” While preaching at a church in California, she said that her access to Trump had allowed her to anoint the White House as “holy ground.” Last summer, another Trump-supporting televangelist, Franklin Graham, called for a special national day of prayer on June 2 to pray for President Trump, which White promoted on her website. She solicited prayer commitments from her fans and promised to personally “take your name to the White House and let our President know you are praying for him and his family.”
Just out of curiosity, I recently made a prayer request through her website, asking her to pray for a family member. I got an email in return promising that White and her prayer intercessors would “deploy the Blood of Jesus on your behalf for your peace.” White also thanked me for “agreeing to pray for President Trump and his family on June 2nd.” Apparently, the form letter hasn’t been updated since last summer. Less than an hour later, I got another email from White asking me to send her a “favor seed” of $50 or more so that she could “Activate supernatural favor” on my behalf. “Favor will make you a household name overnight,” she writes knowingly.
Even as she’s running a nonprofit religious ministry and working a government job, White is once again front and center at many of Trump’s campaign rallies. On January 3, she introduced Trump at the Evangelicals for Trump coalition campaign rally at King Jesus, the same Miami mega church that hosted the Supernatural Ministry School. She told the same story about Trump, too, only this time, instead of rock-concert lighting, the backdrop consisted of American flags, and she stood behind a podium emblazoned with the official presidential seal. C-Span identified her on TV as the “White House spiritual adviser.” People in the audience cheered, “Four more years!”
“When religion and politics get mixed that’s a huge red flag for us,” says Evans. “It’s one of the prohibitions for nonprofits. They’re not supposed to get involved in politics or they risk losing their nonprofit status.” Questions about the nonprofit status of White’s ministries have come up long before she became a regular fixture at the White House. In 2007, White became one of six televangelists investigated by the Senate Finance Committee for potential abuses of their church nonprofit status. Unlike ordinary nonprofits, churches are not required to disclose any of their financial information to the public or the IRS, making their finances extremely opaque and vulnerable to abuses.
Among other things, a Senate report found that White’s personal ministry and the church she ran with her now ex-husband used tax-exempt ministry funds to pay nearly $900,000 one year for the Whites’ waterfront mansion. It paid over a million dollars in salaries to family members and kept the Whites in the air with a private jet. White and her church refused to cooperate with the investigation and in 2011, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), issued a report outlining the committee’s findings but took no other action. White’s church declared bankruptcy in 2014 after defaulting on $29 million in loans from an evangelical credit union. In 2011, amid controversy, she became senior pastor at the predominantly black City of Destiny—then known as New Destiny Christian Center—after its former pastor died of a drug overdose.
One of the problems with having White working in the White House, Evans notes, is that the agency charged with policing nonprofit churches like hers is the IRS, which Trump oversees as president. And one of Trump’s many promises to evangelicals in exchange for their campaign support is that he would help abolish the Johnson Amendment, the 1950s-era tax code provision that prohibits churches from endorsing political candidates. In 2017, he issued an executive order attempting to scale back its enforcement by the IRS. “When your boss is head of all government agencies, including the IRS, you’re really not risking anything” by cheerleading for the president’s reelection campaign, Evans says. “It really is a huge conflict of interest in my opinion.”
As she moved toward the ecstatic conclusion of her sermon at the Miami Supernatural School, White told the crowd, “I told you about the trailer to the White House because I’m not here by coincidence.” She urged people to pay up so she could begin the laying of hands. “You can’t just bring a gratitude offering. It has to be a First Fruits offering! If it is one week’s salary, if it’s a month. If it’s a day, it’s got to be the whole of something. Quickly! Bring it up—do you need an envelope?” she said, directing people to give the First Fruits to the apostles holding baskets. Others, whose gratitude offering was more meagre, should toss theirs on the floor. “God’s about to do something!” White announced.
Before Trump held his January campaign rally at King Jesus, the church leader and Trump supporter, Pastor Guillermo Maldonado, had to issue a special announcement reassuring his congregation that no undocumented immigrants would be deported if they came to the rally—an indication of the church’s demographics. As the bilingual sermon rose to a climax, White gave a performance that gives a whole new meaning to Ronald Reagan’s nine most terrifying words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
When every last dime seemed to have been wrung from the audience, White invited all the “barren” women in the room who desired children to come to the front, “because fruitfulness is getting ready to hit this house. God’s about to open your natural womb. God’s gonna open barren places.” She told a story about helping a woman in Hawaii with no uterus and no fallopian tubes give birth. Then she moved to each hopeful woman—some of whom were infertile, others who struggled with repeated miscarriages—and held their hands or touched her belly, telling one that she’d no longer miscarry. One woman fell on the floor. Others cried in expectation of fruitfulness. White wept and spoke in tongues. “Holy, holy, holy, hallelujah,” she cried, and then held a basket of money up high. “It is blessed!”
When it was over, White held a book signing for her newest book release, Something Greater, which is all about her relationship with God. But Something Greater, of course, is really all about her relationship with Trump. His name is mentioned 177 times in 288 pages. Jesus merits just 82.


motherjones--2020-02-18--“You Can’t Afford to Get Sick”: Why Workers at the Country’s Largest Health Contractor Want a Union

On a snowy day this past December , Logan Stinemetz was driving to his job at a call center in Lawrence , Kansas , where he helps people enroll in health insurance , when he hit black ice and spun into a concrete barrier .
The accident left Stinemetz in debilitating pain , made worse by the arthritis and degenerative disc disease he ’ d been living with for years .
To manage the conditions , Stinemetz typically received pain medication via an epidural , which cost him more than $ 500 and lasted for about two months .
Stinemetz @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treatments ; the health insurance provided by Maximus , the for-profit federal contractor that runs the Obamacare and Medicare call center where Stinemetz works , has a $ 2,500 deductible and a $ 5,000 out-of-pocket maximum .
Then came the accident .
The pain was so bad that Stinemetz couldn ’ t work .
He applied for medical leave , but it took Maximus nearly two months to approve his request .
In the interim , Stinemetz was left to wonder whether he would be fired from his job and lose his health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the insurance would cover treatments in the months he ’ d been waiting .
The added stress and uncertainty didn ’ t help his recovery .
He put off getting an epidural , despite his doctor ’ s suggestion , resolving instead to suffer through it .
“ It makes it even harder to recover and get back to work when I don ’ t have the money to pay for medical treatments that my doctors are recommending , ” he says .
Stinemetz is not alone .
Workers at the 11 insurance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delay critical medical procedures and skip needed medications because of the company ’ s expensive health insurance , low pay , and strict absentee policy , according to interviews with workers and a review of internal company policy documents and labor complaints .
Earlier this month , workers in Kansas filed a complaint with the Department of Labor alleging that the company was misclassifying and underpaying its employees , the 10th such complaint since 2017 .
Maximus workers across the country have begun organizing a union .
The DOL complaint in Kansas comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ renew its contract with Maximus , which in 2016 was hired to process Medicaid applications as part of then-Gov .
Sam Brownback ’ s efforts to privatize Medicaid .
It hasn ’ t gone smoothly : backlogs of as many as 11,000 applications have prevented low-income people and seniors from enrolling in insurance .
The administrator of one nursing home told lawmakers that since Maximus took over , some Medicaid applications have taken more than 18 months to process .
The federal time limit for processing most Medicaid applications is 45 days .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a notice of non-compliance , citing backlog and eligibility issues .
The situation has gotten so bad that at the beginning of this year , the state took over the most complicated applications from Maximus .
“ Maximus ’ performance has not met our standards , ” Jeff Andersen , then-secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment , wrote in an August 2018 government newsletter .
“ While the bid was appealing from a cost-savings perspective , you get what you pay for.
” Maximus agreed to pay the state $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issues , Andersen said .
Before it was involved in health insurance , Maximus specialized in the administration of other social services , like food stamps and cash and work assistance .
In 1987 , it secured the nation ’ s first ever privatized welfare contract , and the company quickly cornered the market of administering the bureaucracy of government services .
Between 2008 and 2018 , the company made at least $ 1.6 billion in government contracts to administer state and federal health care services and another $ 312 million to administer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stamps .
“ For companies like Maximus , ” Tracie McMillan wrote for Mother Jones , “ the paperwork standing between people and public aid equals profit.
” But as McMillan reported , “ Maximus has faced its share of controversies ” : The expansion of health insurance to millions of people under the Affordable Care Act created new opportunities for Maximus .
In November 2018 , the company purchased the Medicare and Obamacare call centers run by General Dynamics Information Technology for $ 400 million in cash , making Maximus the largest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Maximus now oversees federal call centers in Arizona , Florida , Kansas , Kentucky , Louisiana , Mississippi , Texas , Utah , and Virginia and employs more than 13,000 Medicare and Obamacare hotline operators throughout the year , according to documents from the Department of Health and Human Services .
When Maximus took over the call centers , it inherited some problems from GDIT .
GDIT had been accused of misclassifying most of its call center workers and paying them too little .
A complaint filed with the Department of Labor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers are owed back pay totaling $ 100 million .
If workers win their case , it would be the largest wage theft case involving a federal contractor in history .
Maximus ’ foray into the Obamacare and Medicare call center business got the attention of Rep. Rosa DeLauro ( D-Conn ) .
Shortly after Maximus purchased GDIT ’ s call center business , DeLauro sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressing concerns about worker misclassification and high employee turnover @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jones reporting , she wrote that she had “ troubling question [ s ] ” about Maximus assuming control of call center operations .
“ Maximus has a record of fraud and overbilling on government contracts , ” she wrote .
“ Maximus has also claimed unallowable profit fees , billed for extravagant travel and dining costs , and charged inappropriately high rates for fringe benefits and temporary staffing on CMS-funded programs.
” Anna Flemmings , a 53-year-old single mother , has been working on the Medicare hotline at the Hattiesburg , Mississippi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likes helping people make sense out of complicated systems to take care of their families ’ health needs ; it ’ s a job that requires technical agility and emotional savvy .
“ We ’ re the doctor , we ’ re the lawyer , we ’ re the preacher , we ’ re the psychiatrist , we ’ re just a listening ear , ” Flemmings says .
But as she helps others sign up for health insurance , she ’ s struggled to take care of her own needs .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health care costs , she has to contend with the absentee policy Maximus implemented last year .
According to the policy , reviewed by Mother Jones , workers can be fired after missing 64 unplanned hours , or eight days , of work in a year .
That makes absence from work for any unplanned reason—personal illness , a sick child , an aging parent—a risk .
Full-time workers can earn up to 32 hours , or four days , of paid sick leave a year .
But under the absentee policy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sick days .
Because of the strict attendance requirements , many hotline employees apply for time off using the Family and Medical Leave Act , a 1993 federal law that entitles workers to unpaid leave after the birth of a child , to care for a sick family member , or in the event of a serious health condition .
Yet Maximus workers appear to use the law more liberally .
When Flemmings found a lump in her back that she worried might be cancerous , she used FMLA leave for each doctor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ missed from work wouldn ’ t count against her .
“ You can ’ t afford to get sick , ” Flemmings says .
“ You can ’ t afford to get major surgery because you ’ re not able to go to the doctor.
” Ellen Bravo , who helped lead the push for FMLA in the nineties and is now is a strategic advisor for Family Values at Work , a coalition pushing for paid leave laws , says this isn ’ t what advocates had in mind for the policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for serious medical conditions , ” Bravo says .
“ It ’ s why we need a companion policy of paid sick days .
Because it wasn ’ t meant to cover routine illness.
” In spring of 2019 , Ruby Oliver worked at the Bogalusa , Louisiana call center fielding both Medicare and Obamacare calls when her feet got so swollen she couldn ’ t put on shoes .
Her supervisor suggested she arrange medical leave , but it became bureaucratically impossible .
To be approved for time off , she needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But she couldn ’ t get time off to see the doctors in the first place .
The swelling progressed to the point that Oliver could not walk .
She was rushed to the hospital , where she spent 18 days while she was treated for a bacterial infection in her blood .
She was fired while she was in the hospital .
The difficulty in getting time off means coming to work sick is common .
During the most recent open enrollment period , this meant widespread contagion in the Bogalusa call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Everybody had this awful cold with a hacking cough sitting in a building that ’ s just crammed with a thousand people , ” says Kathleen Flick , who has worked at the call center for six years .
“ Nobody could stay home when they were sick , so everybody was getting sick.
” Flick has had her own problems with Maximus .
When her doctor prescribed her medication to treat her irritable bowel syndrome three years ago , she was thrilled with how well it worked .
For a year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cost of the medication .
But when the coupon expired , she couldn ’ t afford the medication anymore .
She would have had to pay 50 percent of its costs , about $ 700 a month , even after she met her deductible .
For Flick , who worked at Maximus for five years before receiving a raise and now earns about $ 27,000 annually , it just didn ’ t add up .
She stopped taking the medication .
Now she takes an over-the-counter drug that she says doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s just undoable for me , ” she says .
“ And I was so happy when I took it for a year because it worked so well.
” The low wages and difficulty accessing health care galvanized Flick to call the Communication Workers of America about unionizing her office .
The effort has spread from Bogalusa to call center sites across the country .
In August , Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren announced their support for the call center workers ’ union drive .
“ I want you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your fight to organize at Maximus to be able to bargain collectively and get fair wages for the vital work you do for our government , ” Warren said in a video message to workers .
Sanders , who met with call center workers about low pay and alleged misclassification in 2018 , tweeted out his support for the campaign .
At the same time , workers have noticed an uptick in anti-union activity from Maximus .
Last April , Flick and some co-workers were handing out coffee , doughnuts , and union @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bogalusa call center when Maximus management called the police on her .
The incident came the day after Maximus implemented a new rule prohibiting off-duty employees from accessing the facility .
CWA filed a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board , in which they allege that Maximus created these rules to discourage employees from joining the union .
Among the claims is the charge that Maximus was “ interfering with , restraining , and coercing employees ” exercising their protected labor rights , in violation of the National Labor Relations Act .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-union literature at several call center sites including in Lawrence and Chester , Virginia , encouraging workers to hang them on their home doorknobs to deter union organizers .
“ This is a company that relies on taxpayer money for the vast majority of its revenue , ” said Alex van Schaick , an attorney for CWA .
“ And yet it ’ s opposing its workers ’ fundamental right to organize on the job.
” In Kansas , the labor issues at the call center have collided with the impending decision whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state .
Officials are currently considering bids for the next Medicaid contract , which expires at the end of the year .
A spokesperson for the state said there were six bidders for the contract , but declined to give a timeline for making a decision .
Though enrollment problems have been evident in Kansas for years , the state extended Maximus ’ contract in 2018 .
The move frustrated some lawmakers , including then–state Sen. Laura Kelly .
“ It ’ s almost like we ’ re rewarding their underbidding to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Kelly said .
Since Kelly became governor in 2019 , she ’ s cut back on Maximus ’ involvement and hired hundreds of state workers to process the most complicated Medicaid applications .
Last month , Kelly announced she had reached a bipartisan deal to expand Medicaid in Kansas .
If the agreement passes , it will make Kansas the 37th state to adopt Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act .
Yet some advocates fear that expanding Medicaid before fixing the problems will only make things worse .
“ I would…highly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Medicaid expansion you look at fixing the broken system we currently have , ” the administrator of a long-term care facility told the legislature last February .
“ I have a fear that should you increase the caseloads now that there will be a break in the system…that will put even more elders ’ care in jeopardy.
” In response to a request for comment , a Maximus spokesperson told Mother Jones that the company “ has been 99 percent compliant with all service level agreements for more than a year and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Post Audit Committee determined that many of the root causes were tied to the implementation of an eligibility system that was wholly outside of Maximus control.
” Kansas isn ’ t the only state where problems linked to Maximus have kept people from accessing the benefits they need .
A recent report from the Government Contractors Accountability Project , a collaboration between CWA and Change to Win , showed a series of problems at Maximus that prevented children and seniors from accessing needed health care across the country .
In Tennessee , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under Maximus ’ administration ; in Pennsylvania , seniors and people with disabilities faced delays applying for home-based care .
If Kansas decides to go with a different bidder , it won ’ t be the first time Maximus has lost a state contract for not meeting expectations–New Jersey took a contract away from Maximus over performance issues in 2004–but it ’ s rare enough that it hasn ’ t hurt the company ’ s bottom line .
As the state determines whether to award Maximus another contract , Logan Stinemetz and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Last month , they met with Rep. Sharice Davids ( D-Kan. ) to discuss their working conditions under the federal contract .
Stinemetz , who processes complex Obamacare applications , knows a thing or two about health insurance choices .
He wishes he could choose one of the Obamacare plans available in the Lawrence area .
But he doesn ’ t have a choice about his employer-based plan—and his health care costs keep rising .
“ We never have a voice in anything and the policies there just keep on getting worse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I ’ d like to have a voice .
”

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
On a snowy day this past December, Logan Stinemetz was driving to his job at a call center in Lawrence, Kansas, where he helps people enroll in health insurance, when he hit black ice and spun into a concrete barrier.
The accident left Stinemetz in debilitating pain, made worse by the arthritis and degenerative disc disease he’d been living with for years. To manage the conditions, Stinemetz typically received pain medication via an epidural, which cost him more than $500 and lasted for about two months. Stinemetz had been struggling to pay for the treatments; the health insurance provided by Maximus, the for-profit federal contractor that runs the Obamacare and Medicare call center where Stinemetz works, has a $2,500 deductible and a $5,000 out-of-pocket maximum. Then came the accident.
The pain was so bad that Stinemetz couldn’t work. He applied for medical leave, but it took Maximus nearly two months to approve his request. In the interim, Stinemetz was left to wonder whether he would be fired from his job and lose his health insurance, and if so, whether the insurance would cover treatments in the months he’d been waiting. The added stress and uncertainty didn’t help his recovery. He put off getting an epidural, despite his doctor’s suggestion, resolving instead to suffer through it.
“It makes it even harder to recover and get back to work when I don’t have the money to pay for medical treatments that my doctors are recommending,” he says.
Stinemetz is not alone. Workers at the 11 insurance enrollment call centers run by Maximus regularly delay critical medical procedures and skip needed medications because of the company’s expensive health insurance, low pay, and strict absentee policy, according to interviews with workers and a review of internal company policy documents and labor complaints. Earlier this month, workers in Kansas filed a complaint with the Department of Labor alleging that the company was misclassifying and underpaying its employees, the 10th such complaint since 2017. Maximus workers across the country have begun organizing a union.
“Maximus’ performance has not met our standards.”
The DOL complaint in Kansas comes as the state is considering whether to renew its contract with Maximus, which in 2016 was hired to process Medicaid applications as part of then-Gov. Sam Brownback’s efforts to privatize Medicaid. It hasn’t gone smoothly: backlogs of as many as 11,000 applications have prevented low-income people and seniors from enrolling in insurance. The administrator of one nursing home told lawmakers that since Maximus took over, some Medicaid applications have taken more than 18 months to process. The federal time limit for processing most Medicaid applications is 45 days.
In January 2018, Kansas sent Maximus a notice of non-compliance, citing backlog and eligibility issues. The situation has gotten so bad that at the beginning of this year, the state took over the most complicated applications from Maximus.
“Maximus’ performance has not met our standards,” Jeff Andersen, then-secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, wrote in an August 2018 government newsletter. “While the bid was appealing from a cost-savings perspective, you get what you pay for.” Maximus agreed to pay the state $10 million in concessions over Medicaid processing issues, Andersen said.
Before it was involved in health insurance, Maximus specialized in the administration of other social services, like food stamps and cash and work assistance. In 1987, it secured the nation’s first ever privatized welfare contract, and the company quickly cornered the market of administering the bureaucracy of government services. Between 2008 and 2018, the company made at least $1.6 billion in government contracts to administer state and federal health care services and another $312 million to administer cash, work assistance, and food stamps. “For companies like Maximus,” Tracie McMillan wrote for Mother Jones, “the paperwork standing between people and public aid equals profit.”
But as McMillan reported, “Maximus has faced its share of controversies”:
Wisconsin was among the first states to contract with Maximus to run welfare-to-work programs in the 1990s, but the company was criticized for spending taxpayer money intended for the poor on marketing materials and workfare programs in other states. After Jason Turner, an architect of Wisconsin’s welfare overhaul, was hired by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Maximus consultants met with New York City welfare officials months before new contracts were even put out for bid. Maximus was initially awarded $104 million out of nearly $500 million in welfare-to-work contracts there. The city’s comptroller rejected the deal based on what he described as “corruption, favoritism, and cronyism.” (A court upheld the contract; Mayor Michael Bloomberg let it quietly expire.) And of course the biggest potential conflict is Seema Verma, the current head of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, who has long-standing ties to the company. During her confirmation hearings in 2017, her consulting firm still held a $10,000 contract with Maximus.
The expansion of health insurance to millions of people under the Affordable Care Act created new opportunities for Maximus. In November 2018, the company purchased the Medicare and Obamacare call centers run by General Dynamics Information Technology for $400 million in cash, making Maximus the largest call center contractor for the federal government. Maximus now oversees federal call centers in Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Utah, and Virginia and employs more than 13,000 Medicare and Obamacare hotline operators throughout the year, according to documents from the Department of Health and Human Services.
When Maximus took over the call centers, it inherited some problems from GDIT. GDIT had been accused of misclassifying most of its call center workers and paying them too little. A complaint filed with the Department of Labor in January 2018 estimates that call center workers are owed back pay totaling $100 million. If workers win their case, it would be the largest wage theft case involving a federal contractor in history.
“We’re the doctor, we’re the lawyer, we’re the preacher, we’re the psychiatrist, we’re just a listening ear.”
Maximus’ foray into the Obamacare and Medicare call center business got the attention of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn). Shortly after Maximus purchased GDIT’s call center business, DeLauro sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressing concerns about worker misclassification and high employee turnover at the call centers. Citing Mother Jones reporting, she wrote that she had “troubling question[s]” about Maximus assuming control of call center operations.
“Maximus has a record of fraud and overbilling on government contracts,” she wrote. “Maximus has also claimed unallowable profit fees, billed for extravagant travel and dining costs, and charged inappropriately high rates for fringe benefits and temporary staffing on CMS-funded programs.”
Anna Flemmings, a 53-year-old single mother, has been working on the Medicare hotline at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi call center for three years. She likes helping people make sense out of complicated systems to take care of their families’ health needs; it’s a job that requires technical agility and emotional savvy.
“We’re the doctor, we’re the lawyer, we’re the preacher, we’re the psychiatrist, we’re just a listening ear,” Flemmings says.
But as she helps others sign up for health insurance, she’s struggled to take care of her own needs. On top of the low wages and high health care costs, she has to contend with the absentee policy Maximus implemented last year. According to the policy, reviewed by Mother Jones, workers can be fired after missing 64 unplanned hours, or eight days, of work in a year. That makes absence from work for any unplanned reason—personal illness, a sick child, an aging parent—a risk. Full-time workers can earn up to 32 hours, or four days, of paid sick leave a year. But under the absentee policy, they are still penalized for taking those sick days.
Because of the strict attendance requirements, many hotline employees apply for time off using the Family and Medical Leave Act, a 1993 federal law that entitles workers to unpaid leave after the birth of a child, to care for a sick family member, or in the event of a serious health condition.
Yet Maximus workers appear to use the law more liberally. When Flemmings found a lump in her back that she worried might be cancerous, she used FMLA leave for each doctor’s appointment so the hours she missed from work wouldn’t count against her.
“You can’t afford to get sick,” Flemmings says. “You can’t afford to get major surgery because you’re not able to go to the doctor.”
Ellen Bravo, who helped lead the push for FMLA in the nineties and is now is a strategic advisor for Family Values at Work, a coalition pushing for paid leave laws, says this isn’t what advocates had in mind for the policy.
“It was intended to be for serious medical conditions,” Bravo says. “It’s why we need a companion policy of paid sick days. Because it wasn’t meant to cover routine illness.”
In spring of 2019, Ruby Oliver worked at the Bogalusa, Louisiana call center fielding both Medicare and Obamacare calls when her feet got so swollen she couldn’t put on shoes. Her supervisor suggested she arrange medical leave, but it became bureaucratically impossible. To be approved for time off, she needed to get paperwork from her doctors. But she couldn’t get time off to see the doctors in the first place.
The swelling progressed to the point that Oliver could not walk. She was rushed to the hospital, where she spent 18 days while she was treated for a bacterial infection in her blood. She was fired while she was in the hospital.
The difficulty in getting time off means coming to work sick is common. During the most recent open enrollment period, this meant widespread contagion in the Bogalusa call center, workers told Mother Jones. “Everybody had this awful cold with a hacking cough sitting in a building that’s just crammed with a thousand people,” says Kathleen Flick, who has worked at the call center for six years. “Nobody could stay home when they were sick, so everybody was getting sick.”
Flick has had her own problems with Maximus. When her doctor prescribed her medication to treat her irritable bowel syndrome three years ago, she was thrilled with how well it worked. For a year, she used a coupon that covered the cost of the medication. But when the coupon expired, she couldn’t afford the medication anymore. She would have had to pay 50 percent of its costs, about $700 a month, even after she met her deductible.
For Flick, who worked at Maximus for five years before receiving a raise and now earns about $27,000 annually, it just didn’t add up. She stopped taking the medication. Now she takes an over-the-counter drug that she says doesn’t work as well. “That’s just undoable for me,” she says. “And I was so happy when I took it for a year because it worked so well.”
The low wages and difficulty accessing health care galvanized Flick to call the Communications Workers of America about unionizing her office. The effort has spread from Bogalusa to call center sites across the country. In August, Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren announced their support for the call center workers’ union drive.
“I want you to know I stand with you in your fight to organize at Maximus to be able to bargain collectively and get fair wages for the vital work you do for our government,” Warren said in a video message to workers. Sanders, who met with call center workers about low pay and alleged misclassification in 2018, tweeted out his support for the campaign.
Congratulations to @CWAUnion for this positive step in their fight against wage theft and corporate greed at @Maximus_news. I stand with them in their fight. https://t.co/fp7AEHKXid — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 16, 2019
At the same time, workers have noticed an uptick in anti-union activity from Maximus. Last April, Flick and some co-workers were handing out coffee, doughnuts, and union literature in the parking lot outside the Bogalusa call center when Maximus management called the police on her. The incident came the day after Maximus implemented a new rule prohibiting off-duty employees from accessing the facility. CWA filed a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board, in which they allege that Maximus created these rules to discourage employees from joining the union. Among the claims is the charge that Maximus was “interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees” exercising their protected labor rights, in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Lately, the company has been providing anti-union literature at several call center sites including in Lawrence and Chester, Virginia, encouraging workers to hang them on their home doorknobs to deter union organizers.
“This is a company that relies on taxpayer money for the vast majority of its revenue,” said Alex van Schaick, an attorney for CWA. “And yet it’s opposing its workers’ fundamental right to organize on the job.”
In Kansas, the labor issues at the call center have collided with the impending decision whether to renew Maximus’ contract with the state. Officials are currently considering bids for the next Medicaid contract, which expires at the end of the year. A spokesperson for the state said there were six bidders for the contract, but declined to give a timeline for making a decision.
Though enrollment problems have been evident in Kansas for years, the state extended Maximus’ contract in 2018. The move frustrated some lawmakers, including then–state Sen. Laura Kelly. “It’s almost like we’re rewarding their underbidding to get the contract in the first place,” Kelly said. Since Kelly became governor in 2019, she’s cut back on Maximus’ involvement and hired hundreds of state workers to process the most complicated Medicaid applications.
Last month, Kelly announced she had reached a bipartisan deal to expand Medicaid in Kansas. If the agreement passes, it will make Kansas the 37th state to adopt Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.
Yet some advocates fear that expanding Medicaid before fixing the problems will only make things worse. “I would…highly suggest that before adding more people to the Medicaid expansion you look at fixing the broken system we currently have,” the administrator of a long-term care facility told the legislature last February. “I have a fear that should you increase the caseloads now that there will be a break in the system…that will put even more elders’ care in jeopardy.”
In response to a request for comment, a Maximus spokesperson told Mother Jones that the company “has been 99 percent compliant with all service level agreements for more than a year and multiple audits completed by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit Committee determined that many of the root causes were tied to the implementation of an eligibility system that was wholly outside of Maximus control.”
Kansas isn’t the only state where problems linked to Maximus have kept people from accessing the benefits they need. A recent report from the Government Contractors Accountability Project, a collaboration between CWA and Change to Win, showed a series of problems at Maximus that prevented children and seniors from accessing needed health care across the country. In Tennessee, “alarming numbers” of children lost care under Maximus’ administration; in Pennsylvania, seniors and people with disabilities faced delays applying for home-based care. If Kansas decides to go with a different bidder, it won’t be the first time Maximus has lost a state contract for not meeting expectations–New Jersey took a contract away from Maximus over performance issues in 2004–but it’s rare enough that it hasn’t hurt the company’s bottom line.
As the state determines whether to award Maximus another contract, Logan Stinemetz and his co-workers are not waiting to take action. Last month, they met with Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) to discuss their working conditions under the federal contract.
Stinemetz, who processes complex Obamacare applications, knows a thing or two about health insurance choices. He wishes he could choose one of the Obamacare plans available in the Lawrence area. But he doesn’t have a choice about his employer-based plan—and his health care costs keep rising.
“We never have a voice in anything and the policies there just keep on getting worse and worse,” Stinemetz says. “I’d like to have a voice.”