jonetta rose barras: The story about the slaying of DC’s proverbial white whale

Since 2020, when Mayor Muriel Bowser and her deputy mayor for health and human services, Wayne Turnage, decided to reorganize the city’s multibillion-dollar Medicaid managed care program in the middle of an unprecedented global pandemic, the duo has seemed engaged in a Moby Dick-esque fight with Amerigroup DC, now known as Wellpoint. 

Given Turnage’s direct and seemingly obsessive efforts to prevent Wellpoint from winning and retaining a portion of that lucrative contract, was he Captain Ahab, sans prosthetics? Was Adrian Jordan, then-president and chief executive officer of Wellpoint DC, the elusive white whale?

Jordan’s primary offense, apparently, was beating, not once but twice, Turnage’s favored companies — MedStar Family Choice and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Community Health Plan — in the contracting competition. Before he could actually secure a signed agreement, Jordan was forced to doggedly fight the Bowser administration, filing a complaint with the DC Contract Appeals Board and later a lawsuit in DC Superior Court.

Along the way, the DC Council aided and abetted, permitting a one-year extension of the contract that had essentially locked out a winning bidder while two with questionable results — MedStar and CareFirst — were allowed to continue to draw public money. Attempting to legitimize his actions, Turnage at various points promised to “reprocure” the managed care contract, adding healthcare for individuals with substance abuse and mental health disorders. That has yet to happen. 

In 2023, Wellpoint officially began its contract, which it shared with AmeriHealth Caritas DC and MedStar Family Choice DC. By that point, CareFirst had been knocked out after an adverse appeals board decision, enabling Wellpoint — which had initially won the competition — to fill its place. Turnage was not happy about taking the L.

Last week, it all came to an end — one I anticipated from 2020 and saw coming to pass as recently as September 2025, when I wrote in this space about a series of unannounced site visits by officials from the DC Department of Health Care Finance, followed by allegations that Wellpoint had violated its contract and repeated dismissals by the government of the company’s legitimate responses to those charges. Turnage said at the time that there were 27 contract violations — although, despite my repeated requests, neither he nor DHCF nor the DC Office of Contracting and Procurement ever provided documentation of those violations.

Just before the holiday weekend, DHCF — which is under Turnage’s control — announced in an email addressed to “Stakeholders” and a “transmittal” dated July 2, 2026, that Wellpoint essentially would no longer be one of the city’s Medicaid managed care companies. The agency also posted similar documents addressed to enrollees and Medicaid providers on its website.

“[E]ffective August 1, 2026, enrollees in the District of Columbia Medicaid Managed Care Program who are currently enrolled with Wellpoint DC (formerly Amerigroup DC) will be automatically assigned to AmeriHealth Caritas DC (AmeriHealth),” according to the transmittal. “A formal transition period will be in place from August 1, 2026 through October 31, 2026 to ensure continuity of care for affected enrollees.”

Melanie Williamson, DHCF’s chief operating officer and chief of staff, sent an email to me as a “courtesy given your prior interest in our managed care program.” 

Knowing the deputy mayor, I was certain that was a gloat delivered by proxy. 

Williamson did not respond to my email request for an interview, sent shortly after receiving her notification. Turnage also did not respond to my email request for an interview. 

At-large Councilmember Christina Henderson, whose Committee on Health oversees DHCF, did not reply to my emails seeking her reaction to the current state of affairs.

Jordan referred me to Denise Malecki, public relations director for Wellpoint’s parent company, Elevance Health. In an email, she told me that after “extensive discussions” the DC government and Wellpoint DC “mutually agreed that Wellpoint DC will exit the District’s Medicaid market.”

“We are working closely with DHCF to support a smooth transition for members, while prioritizing continuity of care. We appreciate the opportunity we have had to serve District residents.” 

Don’t you love these corporate statements that say nothing as they dodge the truth?

At the end of Herman Melville’s novel, Ahab dies after being pulled beneath the sea. The fate of the whale isn’t clear. However, the entire crew dies, save one member who narrated the tale largely about the chaos created by his captain’s obsessions and vengeance.

Who will call out government shenanigans and address the potential hardship that may be ahead for nearly 50,000 DC residents who are members of Wellpoint’s managed care plan? 

Many of them suffer chronic diseases, various physical challenges, addictions and mental health disorders. They are part of the vulnerable population to whom government managers and elected officials frequently refer when they are in one of those self-righteous moods and want to exalt their virtues for doing the work for which they are hired and handsomely paid.

Unquestionably, more than a few of Wellpoint’s clients were among those shuffled by Bowser and Turnage during previous and mostly unnecessary changes to the city’s Medicaid program. Add community health clinics on the front line of DC’s healthcare delivery system to those who could be adversely affected.

Ultimately the benefits will not flow to them. Rather I expect the windfalls to go to Turnage’s friends and allies. For example, the head of AmeriHealth Caritas DC once worked at DHCF. The deputy mayor has often boasted about her good works, although third-party evaluations in the past have found the company coming up short, including in the area of maternal health. 

In its transmittal, DHCF noted that District residents shuttled to AmeriHealth have until Jan. 31 “to select MedStar Family Choice DC (MedStar) if dissatisfied with the auto-assignment.” That essentially means they have only a very limited choice.

It should be noted that during that extended fight over the managed care procurement, MedStar Health, the parent company of MedStar Family Choice, gained leverage by threatening to terminate all services at its hospitals to members of the city’s Medicaid managed care organizations. Adjusting the rules, Turnage found a way to keep the local healthcare behemoth in the fold. 

Even now, the deputy mayor may be protecting MedStar; it has drawn poor performance marks during recent evaluations and has not obtained important accreditations, according to government sources. Under those circumstances Turnage might be unable to send more patients to Family Choice. By law, however, if a patient requests a transfer, the city is obligated to honor that entreaty. 

Whether or not individuals chose to leave AmeriHealth, they will be subjected to the rigors of confirming their “active Medicaid eligibility” while identifying “the current managed care enrollment,” according to the DHCF transmittal.

Wellpoint will be responsible “for reimbursement of all covered services rendered to its enrollees through July 31, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.” 

What happens after that? Expect mayhem — emanating throughout DC’s healthcare system. 

Consider what has happened at Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center over the past year. After the District spent more than $400 million for a so-called world-class, state-of-the-art hospital east of the Anacostia River, residents have had to contend with problems like those that were often recorded at DC General when it was in operation and United Medical Center before it closed. There have been reported staffing shortages, including an insufficient number of doctors, regulatory noncompliance, and a medical malpractice lawsuit filed after the death of a patient.

Healthcare advocates I spoke with refer to Cedar Hill as a “troubled hospital.” They said there has also been talk about filing a class action lawsuit against the facility, which is owned and operated by Universal Health Services — the same company that owns George Washington University Hospital and controls a new physician practice group set to replace GW Medical Faculty Associates.

How has a hospital, open for little more than a year, come to be called “troubled” already?

Truth be told, DC’s healthcare system appears to be in crisis. Some of the problems can be placed at the swollen feet of President Donald Trump and his Republican sycophants. But a great deal of what is happening at the local level isn’t federal.

Last year, Bowser and Turnage decided to change eligibility standards for DC Medicaid and the DC Health Care Alliance. Thousands of poor and working-class adults, including immigrants, lost key benefits. Some were transferred to the city’s new Healthy DC Plan managed by the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority. Others are being gradually removed from the city’s publicly financed health insurance rolls.

The DHCF transmittal as written quotes existing local and federal rules that effectively give the District cover from pending turmoil. For example, it makes clear that, “Specialty providers are expected and authorized to initiate their own referrals for additional tests and procedures.

“The Specialist should not refer the patient/enrollee back to their primary care physician (PCP) to obtain a referral for such services. The additional services are covered under the initial referral to the specialty provider,” according to the transmittal.

But who pays for that service, when Wellpoint is only required to provide reimbursements until July 31?

Who will troubleshoot problems and issues? Who knows? Folks can fill out the “Provider Inquiry Form” and hope for satisfactory resolution.

The saga that brought the demise of Wellpoint DC’s Medicaid managed care program was no less dramatic than the tale created by Melville. As it ended, all of the original players seemed to have congregated. There was Bowser, Turnage and for a time Jordan, before he was promoted to state strategy chief for Elevance.

Karl Racine, as the District’s attorney general at the time, represented the Bowser administration in court after Wellpoint, then acting under the name Amerigroup, filed a complaint and later a lawsuit. In the past few months, Racine, now in private practice, has jumped to the other side, representing Wellpoint and helping it negotiate its departure.

Racine, who endorsed Janeese Lewis George for mayor in the recent Democratic Party primary, did not reply to my email sent to his office at Hogan Lovells Cadwalader.

Proving all’s fair in love, war and business, Kurt Small, who was president of Medicaid at Elevance Health and technically Jordan’s boss, may have been guided more by his ambitions than any interest in protecting his colleague from questionable allegations of contract violations or fake claims of incompetence. On May 4, Small became president and chief executive office of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. RJ Cheremond, a spokesperson for CareFirst, returned my call earlier this week to the media relations office. I asked her several questions for which she did not have the answers, and I indicated my deadline was that day. She said she would get back to me, but never did.

I am reminded that in the early days of the managed care saga, Walter Smith, then-executive director of DC Appleseed Center, was deep in a legal battle with CareFirst, demanding that it use its multimillion-dollar surpluses to provide healthcare for poor and working-class residents instead of paying big money to top executives. 

In 2021, Smith eventually squeezed out a $95 million settlement. The fund is being managed by the Greater Washington Community Foundation.

Interestingly it wasn’t so long after that deal that CareFirst bought the 10-year naming rights for the DC-owned Southeast sports and entertainment arena on the St. Elizabeths East campus. It’s unclear how much it paid Events DC. However, it apparently forked over $2 million for a community benefits program.

If anyone is thinking DC got the best end of that arrangement, think again. Sources told me that CareFirst is well-positioned to win a piece of the Medicaid managed care contract next year. 

So Turnage may indeed have been Ahab. Jordan may have been a whale, just not the elusive giant whale at the heart of the story. That was always the more than $5 billion Medicaid managed care contract.

It looks like CareFirst may finally harpoon it.

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.