A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The termination of the six defined benefit plans the Delphi Corporation (Delphi) sponsored, and the provision of benefit protections to some Delphi employees but not others, culminated from a complex series of events involving Delphi, the General Motors Corporation (GM), various unions, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). When Delphi spun off from GM in 1999, three unions secured an agreement that GM would provide a retirement benefit supplement (referred to as "top-ups") for their members should their pension plans be frozen or terminated and they were to suffer a resulting loss in pension benefits. These three unions were: (1) the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW); (2) the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers, AFL-CIO (IUE); and (3) the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). No other Delphi employees had a similar agreement to receive a top-up, including salaried workers and hourly workers belonging to other unions. Over the course of events that unfolded over the next decade, the agreements with these three unions ultimately were preserved through the resolution …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2011, two agencies--the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice (Justice) --separately administered 12 fragmented but minimally overlapping programs that directed funds toward elder justice, with low risk of duplication. Specifically, because more than one federal agency administers these programs, GAO found that these grant programs are fragmented. Further, GAO found that overlap across the 12 programs was minimal because the programs varied with respect to (1) funding mechanisms and recipients, (2) elder abuse victims targeted, (3) service providers, and (4) activities conducted. For example, a few of these programs provided formula grants to all states and most dispersed discretionary grants to a limited number of recipients. Programs that supported victims of elder abuse generally assisted all types of victims, but some also focused on certain subgroups, such as older women. Some programs that assisted service providers also targeted specific subgroups, such as judges and court personnel. In addition, elder justice programs supported a wide range of activities. For example, one HHS program provided public education to help identify and prevent elder abuse, while a Justice program trained law enforcement officers …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's simulation found that under the current Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) program, the median wage replacement rate--the percentage of take-home pay replaced by FECA--for total-disability beneficiaries was 88 percent for U.S. Postal Service (USPS) beneficiaries and 80 percent for non-USPS beneficiaries in 2010. GAO also found that proposals to set initial FECA benefits at a single compensation rate would reduce these replacement rates by 3 to 4 percentage points under the 70-percent option and 7 to 8 percentage points under the 66-2/3 percent option. Beneficiaries with dependents would receive reduced FECA benefits under both options. The decreases in wage replacement rates were due to the greater proportion of beneficiaries who had a dependent--over 70 percent of both USPS and non-USPS beneficiaries."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Three long-standing major impediments prevented GAO from expressing an opinion on the U.S. government's 2012 accrual-based consolidated financial statements: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD), (2) the federal government's inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal entities, and (3) the federal government's ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements. Also, GAO was prevented from expressing opinions on the 2012 social insurance-related statements because of significant uncertainties primarily related to the achievement of projected reductions in Medicare cost growth reflected in the statements."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO found that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could not demonstrate how the projects that it reported to Congress met the provisions of the 2008 directive because of three weaknesses. First, USAID documents—specifically, the list of projects the agency submitted to Congress— linked only $3.8 million of the $14.8 million in assistance (26 percent) directly to the Ninewa plain region. Second, USAID documents generally did not show whether the projects included minority groups among the beneficiaries of the assistance and specifically whether $8 million of assistance was provided for internally displaced families. Third, USAID officials and documents did not demonstrate that the agency used unobligated prior year Economic Support Fund (ESF) funds to initiate projects in response to the 2008 directive."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented two types of manual medical reviews (MMR)--reviews of preapproval requests and reviews of claims submitted without preapproval--for all outpatient therapy services that were above a $3,700 per-beneficiary threshold provided during the last 3 months of 2012. However, CMS did not issue complete guidance on how to process preapproval requests before the implementation of the MMR process in October 2012, and the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC) that conducted the MMRs were unable to fully automate systems for tracking preapproval requests in the time allotted. CMS required the MACs to manually review preapproval requests within 10 business days of receipt of all supporting documentation to determine whether the services were medically necessary, and to automatically approve any requests they were unable to review within that time frame. CMS officials told GAO that the purpose of the preapproval process was to protect beneficiaries from being liable for payment for nonaffirmed services by giving the provider and beneficiary guidance as to whether Medicare would pay for the requested services. If a provider delivered services without submitting a preapproval request, the MACs …