Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare is highly vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. The enforcement of program payment rules, however, has raised concerns that these safeguards may have imposed too great a burden on health care providers. The proposed Medicare Education and Regulatory Fairness Act would seek to address some of these concerns by providing expedited procedures for provider appeals, new options for providers to use in repaying Medicare overpayments, protections for providers who voluntarily return overpayments or ask for a review of their claims, and new requirements for provider education. This report reviews how this proposed legislation would affect Medicare policies and procedures in (1) provider education and participation, (2) medical reviews, audits, and appeals, (3) recovery of overpayments, and (4) related legal issues."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on its recommendations to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for completing key actions necessary to ensure continued delivery of benefits and health care services to veterans beyond January 1, 2000."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO identified: (1) key issues the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must resolve in order to achieve accountability over its property, plant, and equipment (PP&E); and (2) the status of FAA's efforts to resolve these issues."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO has identified a number of issues related to information technology (IT) duplication across the federal government. For example, GAO has previously reported that hundreds of investments provide similar functions. Specifically, agencies reported 1,536 information and technology management investments, 777 supply chain management investments, and 622 human resource management investments."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Core Financial System Requirements document is intended to assist agencies when reviewing new core financial systems and when improving or evaluating existing core financial systems. It provides the baseline functionality in order to support agency missions and comply with laws and regulations. The final issuance of this document will augment existing federal financial management system functional requirements used in assessing compliance with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the impact of private health insurance premium increases on the number of covered individuals, focusing on: (1) the trends in employers' decisions to offer insurance and employees' decisions to purchase it; (2) an assessment of recent studies that have estimated the relationship between premium increases and insurance coverage; and (3) conditions or factors that could affect the impact of premium increases on insurance coverage."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Labor's Unemployment Insurance (UI) program is a federal-state partnership designed to partially replace lost earnings of individuals who become unemployed through no fault of their own and to stabilize the economy in times of economic downturn. The health of each state's UI program depends, in part, on their ability to control benefit payments by accurately determining eligibility for UI benefits in a timely manner. Labor's Office of Inspector General (OIG) and others have identified numerous aspects of the UI program that may be vulnerable to overpayments and fraud. Of the $30 billion in UI benefits paid in calendar year 2001, Labor estimates that this includes $2.4 billion in overpayments, including $560 million attributable to fraud or abuse. Labor's analysis also suggests that the states could have detected or recovered $1.3 billion of the total overpayments given their current policies and procedures. The management and operational practices at both the state and federal level contribute to overpayments in the UI program. At the state level, many states place a higher priority on quickly processing and paying UI claims than on taking the necessary steps to adequately …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the years, EPA has had persistent problems in managing its grants. Grants constituted one-half of the agency's annual budget, or about $4.2 billion in fiscal year 2002. EPA uses grants to implement its programs to protect human health and the environment and awards them to over 3,300 recipients, including state and local governments, tribes, universities, and nonprofit organizations. EPA's ability to efficiently and effectively accomplish its mission largely depends on how well it manages its grant resources and builds in accountability. Since 1996, GAO and EPA's Office of Inspector General have repeatedly reported on EPA's problems in managing its grants. Because these problems have persisted, in January 2003, GAO cited grants management as a major management challenge for EPA. GAO is currently reviewing EPA's efforts to improve grants management at the request of the Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and Representative Anne Northup. For this testimony GAO is reporting on results of its previously issued reports and on the grants problems EPA faces, past actions to address these problems, and recently issued EPA policies and a 5-year grants management plan to address its …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Homeland Security Act was enacted in November 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to improve homeland security following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The act centralized the leadership of many homeland security activities under a single federal department and, accordingly, DHS has the dominant role in implementing this national strategy. This testimony discusses the status of DHS's actions in fulfilling its responsibilities to (1) establish policies to define roles and responsibilities for national emergency preparedness efforts and prepare for the transition between presidential administrations, and (2) develop operational plans and performance metrics to implement these roles and responsibilities and coordinate federal resources for disaster planning and response. This testimony is based on prior GAO work performed from September 2006 to June 2008 focusing on DHS's efforts to address problems identified in the many post-Katrina reviews."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) contains EPA's scientific position on the potential human health effects of exposure to more than 540 chemicals. Toxicity assessments in the IRIS database constitute the first two critical steps of the risk assessment process, which in turn provides the foundation for risk management decisions. Thus, IRIS is a critical component of EPA's capacity to support scientifically sound environmental decisions, policies, and regulations. GAO's 2008 report on the IRIS program identified significant concerns that, coupled with the importance of the program, caused GAO to add EPA's processes for assessing and controlling toxic chemicals as a high-risk area in its January 2009 biennial status report on governmentwide high-risk areas requiring increased attention by executive agencies and Congress. This testimony discusses (1) the findings from GAO's March 2008 report Chemical Assessments: Low Productivity and New Interagency Review Process Limit the Usefulness and Credibility of EPA's Integrated Risk Information System and related testimonies and (2) GAO's preliminary evaluation of the revised IRIS assessment process EPA issued on May 21, 2009. For this testimony, GAO supplemented its prior audit work with a preliminary …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses Social Security Administration (SSA) improvements in the claims process for its two disability programs, Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Managing its disability caseloads with fair, consistent, and timely eligibility decisions in the face of resource constraints has become one of SSA's most pressing management challenges. SSA has spent more than $39 million over the past 7 years to test and implement initiatives designed to improve the timeliness, accuracy, and consistency of its disability decisions and to make the process more efficient and understandable for claimants. These have included efforts to improve the initial claims process as well as handling appeals of denied claims. The results to date have been disappointing. SSA's two tests to improve the initial claims process produced some benefits; however, both initiatives as tested would have significantly raised costs, and one would have lengthened the wait for final decisions for many claimants. As a result, SSA is considering additional changes to one of these initiatives and has shelved the other. One initiative to change the process for handling appealed claims in SSA's hearing offices has resulted in even slower …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As new technologies that depend on the radio spectrum continue to be developed and used more widely, managing the spectrum can grow increasingly challenging. The current legal framework for domestic spectrum management evolved as a compromise over the questions of who should determine the distribution of the spectrum among competing users and what standard should be applied in making this determination. Although initially, all responsibility for spectrum management was placed in the executive branch, this responsibility has been divided between the executive branch for managing federal use and an independent commission for managing non-federal use since 1927 . The current shared U.S. spectrum management system has processes for allocating spectrum, but these processes have occasionally resulted in lengthy negotiations between the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) over allocation issues. The United States also faces challenges in effectively preparing for World Radiocommunication Conferences. NTIA has several activities to encourage efficient spectrum use by federal agencies, but it lacks the assurance that these activities are effective. NTIA is required to promote efficiency in the federal spectrum it manages, which included more than 270,000 federal …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On April 3, 2008, the Secretary of Commerce announced significant changes to how the Census Bureau (Bureau) would conduct nonresponse follow-up, its largest field operation, in which census workers interview households that do not return initial census forms for the 2010 decennial census, and to its Field Data Collection Automation (FDCA) contract. The Bureau has since issued a redesigned plan to conduct a paper-based follow-up operation, an integrated 2010 Census project schedule, and is working on revising the FDCA contract. These are major changes late in the decennial census cycle. This testimony discusses (1) the Bureau's plans for conducting a paper-based nonresponse follow-up operation, (2) management of the FDCA contract and its latest cost estimates, and (3) the status of the Bureau's integrated 2010 project schedule. This testimony is based on past work, recent interviews with Bureau officials, and a review of redesign documents."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to clean up its Superfund sites, focusing on: (1) how long it will take to complete the construction of cleanup facilities at hazardous waste sites on the National Priorities List as of early 1999; and (2) how much it will cost."

Press release reporting on the vandalism in an NGLTF office in Oregon in response to the organization's efforts in that state.

A typed document with handwritten notes addressing LGBT and AIDS activists organizations seeking to compromise the campaign of presidential candidate, Perot.

Press release reporting on the presence of gay and lesbian activists at the Republican National Committee's meeting despite being denied a spot to testify during the meeting.

A purchasing office form sent from Peggy McFerrin to NTIEVA in order to clarify some budgeting items and charges.

Receipt for delivery of goods. Signed possibly by W. R. in Port Lavaca on June 11, 1844. Marked paid in full on July 4 [1844].

Receipt for lumber to be delivered to Castroville.

Received of Levi Perryman through W. A. Morris the sum of $2.00. Collected upon the execution issued in the case Wheeler & Wilson Co. vs W. P. Leverett. Signed by the Justice of the Peace of Harris County, H Brashear.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Will Wilson, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Can a warehouseman duly licensed under the Texas Grain Warehouse Law (Ch. 106, p. 385, Acts 53rd Legislature, 1953, codified as Article 5577a, V.C.S.) issue a negotiable warehouse receipt to himself for grain owned by him which is stored in his own warehouse?

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Will Wilson, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether or not the provisions of H.B. 695 will repeal the provisions of the recently enacted S. B. 303.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Will Wilson, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Duties and responsibilities of various departments and agencies in the control and disposition of oil and gas leases, and the proceeds therefrom, of University lands.