Memorandum of meeting with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R)-Texas regarding Dyess AFB and other Texas bases.

Memorandum of meeting with the mayor of Milwaukee and community representatives regarding General Mitchell International Airport Air Reserve Station, WI.

Memorandum of meeting regarding a briefing and tour of the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), VA.

Three memoranda of meetings from the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. The first two memoranda document meetings with the Naval Aviation Industrial Joint Cross-Service Group (I-JSG) regarding the Industrial Group’s proposal (IND 19) and the concepts used to evaluate capacity across all services. The third memorandum documents a meeting with military personnel regarding the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, NC.

Memorandum of Meeting with Naval Air Depot (NADEP) North Island staff to discuss financial data provided by NADEP North Island.

Memorandum of Meeting with Naval Air Depot (NADEP) North Island staff to discuss financial data provided by NADEP North Island.

Memorandum of Meeting with representatives from the Navy Southwest Region regarding a briefing presented by Rear Admiral Betancourt, Commander of the Navy Southwest region. BRAC Commission staff also provided an overview of the commission for the Admiral and his staff.

Memorandum of Meeting with Navy Medical Education and Training Command (NMETC) staff regarding a briefing of NMETC, Bethesda.

Memorandum of Meeting with Mr. Cecil Saunders of the Defense Commissary Agency (DECA) regarding the consolidation of DECA at Fort Lee, Virginia.

Memorandum of Meeting with Naval Air Depot North Island staff regarding a briefing and tour of the Naval Air Depot.

Memorandum of meeting with officials at Malcolm Grow Medical Center, Andrews AFB, Maryland, that included a briefing and tour of the facilities and provided an overview of the hospital's mission and quality of service.

First part of memorandum of meeting with the Horsham-Willow Grove Chamber of Commerce and community representatives regarding the Naval Air Station Willow Grove, PA, including business cards of the attendees.

Memorandum of meeting with China Lake, CA community representatives to gather information regarding the proposed realignments for Naval facilities at China Lake.

Memorandum of meeting between Navy Officials and BRAC Officials concerning BRAC actions affecting Point Mugu Naval Base, Ventura County, CA.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare--the federal health insurance program that covers the nation's elderly and disabled--annually processes over 1 billion medical claims for services provided to beneficiaries. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), administers the Medicare program with the assistance of its claims administration contractors. These contractors are charged with processing and paying claims that are properly submitted and that are for medically necessary and covered services. The contractors also deny payment for claims considered invalid, incomplete, or otherwise improper. Medicare beneficiaries and providers have the right to appeal denied claims through a multilevel administrative process that includes a decision by an administrative law judge (ALJ). In fiscal year 2004, CMS's contractors denied over 158 million Medicare claims, about 5 million of which resulted in the initiation of appeals. In the same year, about 113,000 denied claims were appealed to ALJs. Two federal agencies--HHS and the Social Security Administration (SSA)--play a role in resolving Medicare appeals, but neither agency manages the entire process. In recent years, the Medicare appeals process has been the subject of widespread concern because of …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare pays hospitals for drugs that beneficiaries receive as part of their treatment in hospital outpatient departments. Specifically, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) uses an outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) to pay hospitals fixed, predetermined rates for services. These services include drugs given to beneficiaries in outpatient settings. When OPPS was first developed as directed by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the rates for hospital outpatient services and drugs were based on hospitals' 1996 median costs. However, these rates prompted concerns that payments to hospitals would not reflect the cost of newly introduced pharmaceutical products--drugs, biologicals, and radiopharmaceuticals--used to treat, for example, cancer, rare blood disorders, and other serious conditions. In turn, congressional concerns were raised that beneficiaries might lose access to some of these products if hospitals avoided providing them because of a perceived shortfall in payments. In response to these concerns, the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999 authorized pass-through payments, which are a way to augment, on a temporary basis, the OPPS payments for newly introduced pharmaceutical products …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In February 2005, we issued our opinions on the calendar year 2004 financial statements of the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF), the Savings Association Insurance Fund (SAIF), and the FSLIC Resolution Fund (FRF). We also issued our opinion on the effectiveness of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) internal controls as of December 31, 2004, and our evaluation of FDIC's compliance with significant provisions of selected laws and regulations for the three funds for the year ended December 31, 2004. The purpose of this report is to discuss issues identified during our audits of the 2004 financial statements regarding accounting procedures and internal controls that could be improved, and to recommend improvements to address these issues. Although these issues were not material in relation to the financial statements, we believe they warrant management's attention."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit reports covering the financial statements of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society of the United States of America, for fiscal year 2003. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit reports included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit reports covering the financial statements of the Air Force Sergeants Association for fiscal years 2004 and 2003. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit reports included the auditors' opinion that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to annually prepare and submit audited financial statements of the U.S. government to the President and the Congress. We are required to audit these consolidated financial statements (CFS) and report on the results of our work. In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the fiscal year 2004 CFS, we evaluated the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) financial reporting procedures and related internal control over the process for compiling the CFS, including the management representation letter provided us by Treasury and OMB. Written representation letters from management, required by U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, ordinarily confirm oral representations given to the auditor, indicate and document the continuing appropriateness of those representations, and reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between management and the auditor. The purpose of this report is to communicate our observations on the Department of State's (DOS) fiscal year 2004 management representation letter. Our objective is to help ensure that future management representation letters submitted by DOS are sufficient to help support Treasury and OMB's …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center exposed the vulnerability of the financial markets to disruption by such events. As part of a series of reviews we have performed at the request of Members of Congress, we have examined and reported on the adequacy of the steps that financial market participants have taken to reduce their vulnerability to attacks and to be better able to recover from such events when they occur. In addition to taking steps to reduce the likelihood that physical attacks will damage their facilities, financial market organizations must also implement protections to reduce the potential for electronic attacks to disrupt their operations. Electronic attacks can be the result of individuals (such as hackers) or groups, such terrorist organizations or foreign governments, attempting to gain unauthorized access to a specific organization's networks or systems or from malicious computer programs or codes, such as viruses or worms, that seek to damage data or deny access to legitimate users. Given the importance of this topic, Congress asked us to review the measures taken by selected critical financial market organizations, including exchanges, clearing organizations, …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On April 12, 2005, the Comptroller General testified before Congress at a hearing on "NSPS: The New Department of Defense Civilian Personnel System--Reaching Readiness." This letter responds to a request that GAO provide answers to questions for the record. The questions covered major areas of concern for the Department of Defense's National Security Personnel System (NSPS)."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit reports covering the financial statements of the Military Order of the World Wars for fiscal year 2003. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit reports included the auditors' opinion that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly on a modified cash basis of accounting."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit reports covering the financial statements of the Italian American War Veterans of the United States, for fiscal year 2001. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit reports included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly on a modified cash basis of accounting."