The Government Accountability Office’s 2015 High Risk List is designating two new high-risk areas — Managing Risks and Improving VA Health Care, and Improving the Management of IT Acquisitions and Operations. This brings the 2015 High Risk List to a total of 32 areas. Also, two areas were expanded to include new issues, and two were narrowed because of progress made.
May 2015
The latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office say requests from six states where Affordable Care Act premium rate increases have already been filed are averaging 18.6 percent. Other CBO requests, not reported by Investor’s Business Daily, above, show New Mexico’s market leader Health Care Service Corp. is asking for an average premium spike of 51.6 percent; Tennessee’s top insurer BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee wants an average spike of 36.3 percent; Maryland’s market leader CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield is requesting an average spike of 30.4 percent; and Oregon’s top insurer, Moda Health, is seeking a 25 percent spike.
Readers should remember this is the law Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi famously said lawmakers had to pass before they could read it.
Taxpayers will be required to pay the increases, irrespective of whether they have read it.
April 2015
According to the Government Accountability Office, The Department of Energy’s (DOE) loan programs comprise 34 loans and loan guarantees totaling about $28 billion. As of November 2014, DOE estimates the total expected net cost over the life of the loans — to be $2.21 billion, including $807 million for loans that have defaulted.
These guarantees have been for nuclear, solar, and wind generation; solar manufacturing; and other energy projects…. However, borrowers have defaulted on loans for five projects, including two solar manufacturing projects, two advanced automotive manufacturing projects, and one energy storage project.
Which raises many questions, one of which is this: if nuclear, solar and wind generation are viable replacements for fossil fuels, why isn’t T. Boone Pickens making money?
Or, better yet, how is United coming along with a prototype, solar- or wind-powered jet liner?
Given that manufacturing has been getting lip service from Washington for years, what might be the effect of allocating $28 billion to domestic manufacturing with the intent of leaving behind 10 percent in defaults?
March 2015
A March 16 report by the Government Accountability Office found “improper payments” of nearly $125 billion. “Improper payments” is a euphemism for fraud.
In a similar story, from CNBC on March 11, during tax years 2006 to 2011, 66,920 people filed using a Social Security number for someone born before June 16, 1901—that is, people who would now be age 113 and older.
According to the Gerontology Research Group, there are only 39 known living individuals worldwide that are age 112 or older.
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February 2015
According to the U.S. Census Bureau report People in Poverty by Selected Characteristics: 2012 and 2013, approximately 45,318,000 Americans lived below the poverty line in 2013. According to a sister report from the Government Accounting Office, Affordable Rental Housing, governmental agencies including Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture and the Internal Revenue Service spend “around $40 billion” per year on rental assistance, or about $88,318 per person living at “80 percent or less of the applicable area median income.” This assumes the government’s standards of poverty are similar between “poverty line” and “80 percent ….” The dollar figure per household, would, of course, be higher.