Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A growing number of states--35 as of June 2009--have created high-risk health insurance pools (HRPs) primarily to provide coverage to individuals whose health status limits their access to coverage in the private individual health insurance market. HRPs--typically state-run nonprofit associations--often contract with a private health insurance carrier to administer the pool and offer a range of health plan options to such individuals, who are commonly referred to as medically uninsurable. Plan options vary within pools and from state to state, and like the private individual market, HRPs typically impose waiting periods for coverage of preexisting conditions to discourage medically uninsurable individuals from foregoing health insurance until they require care. Because of the higher health care costs typically incurred by medically uninsurable individuals, all pools operate at a loss. Premiums for HRP health plans are higher than for plans offered to healthy individuals in the private health insurance market; however, these premiums are capped to limit enrollees' costs and are thus insufficient to cover the costs of enrollee health care claims. As a result, all HRPs supplement their revenues through various funding mechanisms, such as assessments on health insurance …

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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Authority of the Department of State Health Services to enforce state asbestos regulations against municipalities(RA-0775-GA).

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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a district attorney's occupation of office space leased by the county from the district attorney's spouse constitutes a conflict of interest (RQ-0780-GA)

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses our work on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), under which the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), through the Office of Financial Stability (OFS), has the authority to purchase and insure almost $700 billion in troubled assets held by financial institutions. Treasury was granted this authority in response to the financial crisis that has threatened the stability of the U.S. banking system and the solvency of numerous financial institutions. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (the act) that authorized TARP on October 3, 2008, requires GAO to report at least every 60 days on findings resulting from our oversight of the status of actions taken under the program. This statement today is based on our fifth mandated report, issued on June 17, 2009, which follows up on the previous recommendations and covers the actions taken as part of TARP through June 12, 2009. Our oversight work under the act is ongoing, and our next report will be issued later this month, and will focus on TARP's loan modification program. Specifically, this statement focuses on (1) the nature and purpose of activities that have been initiated under …