You could have heard the PFFFTTTTT all over the house when I read "Bermuda-based company" in this article. Um, Accenture was a new hydra head of Arthur Anderson, who helped cook Enron's books (and shred their records); the only reason they moved OUT of the United States for their offices was for a tax break.

Let's review: In 2005, contract with Accenture was 899 MILLION dollars, ostensibly to provide Texans with an efficient way to get such service items as food stamps, Medicaid, etc.

But Accenture couldn't do it!

Problems also cropped up when the Texas Access Alliance took over processing applications for the Children's Health Insurance Program, the state's low-cost health insurance program for the children of the working poor. Enrollment dipped below 300,000 for the first time since the program's infancy but has since rebounded.

Advocates for poor families said contract workers lost CHIP applications and other paperwork, gave contradictory instructions about submitting information missing from their files and failed to credit payments to their accounts.

"There really is a dividing line in terms of what families experienced - there is before Accenture and there is after Accenture and there is no comparison between the two," said Barbara Best, executive director of the Children's Defense Fund of Texas. "The processing problems these families have experienced are really beyond belief."

Accenture should be out of the process by the end of the year, but does it look like the Powers That Be in the Texas Legislature want to repeat the privatization mistake? For some Democratic lawmakers, No, but for people like Tom Craddick, yes.

"All that glitters isn't gold, and privatization is not gold," said Democratic state Rep. Garnet Coleman of Houston. "It is fraught with inefficiency and poor operation and this has been the poster child for privatization in Texas."

Amen!