Health Reform … What’s in Store? – National Consumers League

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by Mimi Johnson, Health Policy Associate

As Governor Kathleen Sebelius’ confirmation hearings continue, there is increased buzz around town about what’s in store for health reform.

Prevention!

We could not be more excited that prevention is one of the key areas of concern for lawmakers. In fact, contact your Senators and Representative and let them know that you support prevention and that it should be included in health reform. At a recent meeting, a Hill insider mentioned that there are still a lot of politicians out there who don’t value putting resources towards prevention. We do. It’s really important that the government focus on prevention because it will require changes in infrastructure – making it safer to go for a walk through town; easier to access healthy, fresh foods; and have more quality face time with our health care practitioners.

Secondary and Tertiary Prevention?

One of the more exciting prospects of health reform is the idea of including *secondary and tertiary prevention. This means that the government – from Congress and federal agencies down to the local community health system – will work to ensure that we can better manage our health, including any chronic conditions we might have. Secondary prevention focuses on detecting a disease in its earliest state, while *tertiary prevention aims to manage chronic conditions or illnesses to improve a patient’s quality of life.If we can promote prevention – in all forms, we can help save more lives and money.Secondary and tertiary prevention can help patients to better understand and utilize the health care system in addition to helping them take medication safely and appropriately.*

With a new leader at HHS, and a country ready for more than just another Band-Aid fix, the time is now for *health reform. We are hopeful that this comprehensive reform will help us change the way we think about our health.

*Stay tuned – we’ll soon have more information about our developing medication adherence campaign, which is a prime example of secondary prevention.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

An Ounce of Prevention Worth a Pound of Cure for Mortgage Fraud – National Consumers League

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By John Breyault, Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud

Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department, along with the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice, *Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the *Attorney General of Illinois announced an unprecedented crackdown on mortgage fraud and foreclosure rescue scams. The State of Illinois filed two lawsuits and the FTC announced five new enforcement actions against companies engaged in fraudulent mortgage modification and foreclosure rescue schemes. The FTC warned dozens more companies about potentially deceptive trade practices related to such activities.

The bursting of the housing bubble has left millions of Americans searching for ways to deal with the increased costs of adjustable-rate or “balloon” loans and stave off foreclosure. Unfortunately, fraudsters see this misery as an opportunity to take advantage of desperate victims and fleece them as exactly the time these consumers can least afford it. The unfortunate reality of these scams is that thousands of consumers end up financially ruined and often out on the street.

While we certainly welcome stepped-up enforcement by federal and state authorities, we believe that such action often comes too late for victims of such scams. Who knows how many consumers could have avoiding becoming fraud statistics if they had been armed with information to help them spot these scams and take advantage of the legitimate resources available to help them negotiate with their creditors and avoid foreclosure?

With this in mind, NCL last week called on the nation’s leaders to place a renewed emphasis on consumer education to empower consumers to avoid mortgage modification, foreclosure rescue, and other forms of mortgage fraud.

Said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg:

“Recent multi-agency federal and state actions to tackle the threat of mortgage fraud are a positive step in helping to protect consumers. Fraudsters should be apprehended and brought to justice. All too often, however, victims of these schemes have already been ruined financially by the time mortgage fraud rings are broken up by law enforcement. Now, more than ever, enforcement should be tied to prevention by devoting more resources to educating consumers through churches, community centers, senior centers, schools, and libraries. This is needed particularly in vulnerable low-income, elderly, and immigrant communities, whose members are frequent targets for mortgage fraud.”

Last week, the Treasury Department stated that from July 2002 to June 2008, it had received nearly 180,000 reports suspicious activity related to potential mortgage fraud. While these statistics are shocking, it is likely that thousands more instances of such fraud go unreported. Enforcement against scammers is an important part of the fight against mortgage fraud, but it should not be the only part. For the vast majority of consumers, their homes are the biggest investment they will ever make. They should be empowered with information, through coordinated widely available consumer education efforts to avoid losing those investments to scam artists.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

Focus on LifeSmarts: Countdown to St. Louis! – National Consumers League

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As we get closer to this year’s National LifeSmarts Championship event, which will take place in St. Louis, MO, April 25-28, we thought it might be a good time to showcase the real-life lessons LifeSmarts offers its participants.

First up: Health and Safety

As the economy worsens, you or someone you know may have difficulty paying medical bills. In LifeSmarts, teen participants learn that it pays to shop around and compare many different options before selecting what to purchase. Good consumers also know that the prices of certain items are negotiable – like new and used cars, houses, and consumer items bought through online auctions.

What you may not know is that many doctors have some flexibility with the rates they charge and may be able to offer reduced fees depending on your circumstances. Check out this recent New York Times article “Bargaining Down the Medical Bills” to find out more about negotiating fees with doctors and to read some helpful tips.

Are You a Locavore? – National Consumers League

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by Mimi Johnson

The First Family is one step closer to being locavores, after recently planting a *vegetable garden on the lawn of the White House. There has not been a garden of its kind at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden during World War II. Sustainable agriculture, proponents say, is good for your health, as well as the health of the environment. First Lady Michelle Obama said she hoped this garden will help educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables, and that they will “begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities.” In an age of convenience and attempts to save time, we all too often forget the satisfaction (and importance) of fresh foods. We too hope that this garden plants seeds of prevention in the minds of millions of Americans.

Even technology is getting into the game. With the Locavore 1.0 application, iPhone users can locate local, seasonal food and farmers’ markets across the country.

As the weather becomes warmer and the days longer, you might consider planting a few herbs or vegetables yourself. If your thumbs are not too green, consider taking a trip to your local farmers’ market … in addition to getting some good eats, you’ll also help support local businesses.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

DVD Copying Is In the Public Interest – National Consumers League

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By John Breyault, NCL VP of Public Policy, Fraud and Telecommunications

Consumers have an average of 78 DVDs in their collections and are frustrated that for the most part, they are limited to only using the physical discs, according to NCL’s *new survey on DVD usage.

For years, consumers have enjoyed to the freedom to copy their compact disc collections for back up purposes or transfer the content of those discs to their computers for personal use. Many consumers have spent years building up vast collections of CDs, so this ability is a welcome way to extend the lives of their collections and listen to their library on different platforms, such as iPods or personal computers.

A confluence of factors led to our interest in the DVD copying issue. The dramatically lower cost of hard drive space, the promulgation of portable video-viewing devices, including in-car players, video-capable personal music devices, and ultraportable laptop computers and the wide availability of DVD-RW drives are all technological advances that have made copying DVD content to hard drives practical for consumers. Our goal in surveying consumers on this issue was to see if these greater technological capabilities, combined with years of expectations related to content use (from the CD market) have translated into greater consumer desire to copy DVDs.

Our survey of consumer attitudes towards DVD copying largely validated our hypothesis. Some of the highlights from the survey results include:

·        90% (93% of households with children) of consumers believe that DVD owners should be able to copy a DVD to their computer in the same way that they save music from a CD.

·        69% of respondents reported watching DVDs on their computers (74% in households with children)

·        31% of consumers use a portable or in-car DVD player regularly, a figure which rises to 40% for households with children.

·        More than one-third (38) of respondents have had to repurchase at least one DVD because it was lost or damaged.

·        41% of respondents said that the ability to copy a DVDs to their hard drives would make their DVD collections more valuable and 40% said that it might cause them to buy more DVDs.

For more information on the new survey, *click here.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

Ag Secretary Hears Consumer Groups’ Concerns – National Consumers League

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by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Consumer and food safety groups recently had the chance to sit down with new Agriculture Secretary, *Tom Vilsack. During the campaign, the Secretary had made some important pro-consumer statements, including supporting the creation of a single agency for food safety—something consumer groups have spent a decade working for. After a rash of recalls on everything from contaminated spinach, raspberries, beef, peanut butter, pet food and just this week, pistachios contaminated with salmonella, it has become clear that our food safety system is in need of an overhaul.

Gathering in a beautiful, old conference room in the Agriculture Department’s Whitten Building on the National Mall, the consumer groups and Vilsack, former governor of Iowa, talked about his principles of governing: transparency, participation, and collaboration. He also talked about his close relationship with the incoming Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, current Governor of Kansas. In her role as head of HHS, Sebelius will oversee the work of the Food and Drug Administration and it’s important that these two food safety watchdogs can work together.

The FDA oversees the safety of 80 percent of our food supply, including produce, while the Department of Agriculture regulates 20 percent, including meat, poultry, and eggs. Altogether *20-some separate federal agencies have some responsibility for food safety. Funding for FDA, however, has so diminished in recent years that imported fruits and vegetables have about a 1 percent chance of getting inspected at the border. Domestic produce farms and growers are likely to be inspected only once every 5 years.

Vilsack mostly listened as our consumer groups—including Nancy Donley of S.T.O.P. (Safe Tables Our Priority), whose only child died from eating a fast food hamburger infected with E. coli and has been a food safety activist ever since—talked about including consumer representatives in the Food Safety Working Group, which President Obama has pledged to create, and other issues.

For me, the importance of this meeting lay in the Secretary of Agriculture looking around the table at the 17 people in our meeting who represent the interests of millions of consumers. After this discussion, I think Secretary Vilsack better understands who we are and that consumer groups will need to have a seat at the table—and will play a critical role—in the new Administration’s initiatives on food safety and consumer protection.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

Turn the Tables on Scammers this April Fool’s Day – National Consumers League

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By John Breyault

The first day of April often brings with it a raft of pranks, jokes, and other silliness. Unfortunately, scammers consider every day to be April Fool’s Day – and the joke’s on unwary consumers.

This year, we urge consumers to turn the tables on scam artists and get educated about new scams. Scammers frequently tailor their scam’s pitches to an approaching holiday or significant event. For example, every year around the December holidays, we see an increase in *charity scams. Similarly, we expect an upswing in reports to NCL’s Fraud Center about scams related to Tax Day as we approach April 15.

Tax Day scams come in many forms, so consumers should be sure to be on the lookout for them. Some of the more common variants include:

  • Phishing Scams – The victim receives an email, fax or phone call, purportedly from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or state taxation authority, asking for personal information necessary to process a refund. Consumers who fall victims lose their personal information, which the scammer can use to commit identity theft or drain a bank account (if a bank account number is provided to the scammer). The reality is that the IRS and state taxation authorities will never contact filers in this way to obtain additional information. Consumers should avoid giving any personal information out when they receive such calls and do not click on links in such emails, even if they have an IRS logo (phishers are experts at making “official-looking” emails). For more information on IRS phishing scams, visit *the agency’s official site.
  • Home-Based Business Tax Schemes – Promoters of home-based business opportunities (many of which are just masked *pyramid schemes) sometimes claim that such businesses can be used to avoid paying taxes by listing most, if not all, personal expenses as tax-deductible business expenses. Consumers falling victim to such schemes could be liable for back-taxes owed, IRS penalties, and even imprisonment. Click *here for more information.
  • Abusive Return Preparers – Tax season is a stressful time for many consumers. Difficult-to-understand forms, complicated calculations, and the ever-looming April 15th deadline lead millions of consumers to use tax preparers, most of which are reputable businesses. Unfortunately, abusive return preparers can hit unsuspecting consumers with a double-whammy. First, these scammers often charge outrageous fees and skim profits off the top of consumers’ refunds. Second, such returns often incur the wrath of the IRS. Since the consumer is ultimately responsible for his or her own return, they could be liable for IRS penalties. *Click here for tips from the IRS for choosing a reputable tax preparer, and always check out the business with your local *Better Business Bureau.
  • Refund Anticipation Loans – While not technically a scam, refund anticipation loans (known as RAL’s in industry jargon and often advertised as “rapid refund” loans) are used to get cash to consumers in as little as 24-48 hours after a return is filed. What is generally not well disclosed to consumers is that such “refunds” are actually loans from the tax preparer, often with hefty fees and even heftier interest rates (over 700% in some cases!). And, for consumers whose tax refunds are unexpectedly withheld from the government, they are still obligated to repay the loan, at the exorbitant interest rate. Such loans are often targeted at low-income and immigrant communities, preying on unfamiliarity with the tax system. For more information on RAL’s, click here.

Consumers who believe that they’ve been the victim of tax scams can file a complaint with NCL’s Fraud Center by using our online complaint form. These complaints are shared with more than 90 federal, state and local law enforcement and consumer protection agencies in the U.S. and Canada.

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

GAO Finds Major Lapses at the Wage and Hour Division – National Consumers League

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By Reid Maki, Director of the Child Labor Coalition

The tip call came into the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) *Wage and Hour Division (WHD) hotline: children were illegally working during school hours in a meatpacking plant in Modesto, CA, and they were operating dangerous equipment like meat grinders and circular saws. The caller was forced to leave a message because the hotline operators did not answer. What happened next? What did the people tasked with protecting child workers from dangerous and illegal activities? Nothing. For four months after the message was left, no action was taken. No one even responded to the call. And the call was not even logged into the Department of Labor case system. It just fell through the cracks. And apparently it wasn’t an isolated case.

The call was fictitious—a test being conducted by the Government Accountability Office, a government agency that frequently evaluates federal programs, and the Modesto case was fabricated to see how Wage and Hour would respond. The GAO presented its findings on Wednesday, March 25 at a hearing before the House Education and Labor Committee that raises a lot of concerns about the effectiveness of the DOL between July 2008 and March 2009 when the research was conducted. Last September, Sally Greenberg of the National Consumers League testified before Education and Labor’s Subcommitee on Workforce Protections, and asked for increased WHD enforcement, including a doubling of the number of WHD investigators.

Of the 10 fictitious calls GAO made to test WHD responses to possible workplace violations (mostly involving lost wages), WHD successfully investigated only one of the cases! Five of the cases were not even recorded into the WHD database of cases. In one case, the WHD investigator lied about a company’s profitability and claimed he was unable to investigate the case. In two of the cases, WHD recorded the cases as successfully resolved because the worker had been paid lost wages when no money had been actually paid. In one case, a caller left seven messages asking for help and none were returned. Some calls went straight to messages saying the office was closed when it was supposed to be open. In several cases, WHD investigators attempted to dissuade complaint filers by telling them that they faced an 8-10 month backlog or that they may be fired by their employer for filing a complaint.

Among the problems GAO found in the investigation:

  • The pre-recorded message at one WHD regional office hotline had a 23-second gap of silence before it went to voicemail. Customers with complaints thought they were disconnected and often hung up.
  • In WHD’s southeast division, which recorded 57 percent of the conciliations during fiscal year 2007, there was a policy of not recording unsuccessful conciliations in the WHD Database.
  • Staff in one field office said that they were required to drop a case if there were three unanswered phone calls made to an employer under investigation.
  • In 150 test calls, more than half went directly to voicemail with no phone calls ever returned.

GAO investigators also analyzed WHD records in 115 conciliated cases and 115 non-conciliated cases between October 1, 2006 and September 31, 2007 and found numerous flaws. Gregory Kutz, managing director of forensic audits and special investigations, told committee members that the system did not work for 19 percent of the complainants in the non-conciliated cases they looked at. In other words, one in five people who deserved help didn’t get it.

“This investigation clearly shows that the Department of Labor has left thousands of actual victims of wage theft who sought federal government assistance with nowhere to turn,” concluded investigators in their written report.

The one bright spot: GAO found that cases that were correctly entered into the system and acted upon were often resolved satisfactorily—even among nonconciliated cases, they found that 81.2 percent had been investigated and resolved appropriately.

The GAO felt that most WHD investigators were dedicated to their work and they did help recover an estimated $200 million in back wages. The GAO suggests that training and better tools—computers, databases, and software—might help eliminate some of the case failures. More investigators might help they said. The intake system certainly needs to be overhauled and all valid complaints must be entered into the WHD’s database, they maintained. They also suggested looking at expanding the current two-year stature of limitations on wage theft.

We’d like to point out that these alleged abuses occurred during the last administration and with a new WHD under Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who has a reputation as a friend of workers, we are hopeful that the system will be corrected. She has already called for hiring 250 new investigators. The GAO report suggests however that much work needs to be done.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

Wisconsin Cracking Down on Dangerous Traveling Sales Crews – National Consumers League

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Breaking news from Wisconsin, as reported by the Associated Press: state lawmakers moved Tuesday to approve the nation’s toughest regulations on companies that use traveling crews to sell products. The bill is expected to be signed into law, and this would put Wisconsin at the head of the pack for protecting kids from predatory traveling sales crews.

This is an issue that’s close to our heart at NCL, which operates the Child Labor Coalition. Working on a Traveling Sales Crew is one of the most dangerous jobs out there for kids, as we’ve reported annually in our Five Worst Teen Jobs. In 2008, Traveling Sales Crews was listed as the second most dangerous job.

Traveling sales might be a legitimate career choice for grown-ups, but our advice for parents is that they should not allow their children to take a sales job that requires them to travel. The dangers are just too great. Without parental supervision, teens are at too great a risk of being victimized by exploitative crew leaders, the dangers of the road, and more.

In May 2008, the Spokane, WA police investigated a 16-year-old’s claim that she was held as a captive worker by a traveling sales crew. She escaped after the crew leaders beat up her boyfriend because he wasn’t selling enough magazines.

Traveling sales companies often charge young workers for expenses like rent and food, requiring them to turn over any money they make from selling magazines or goods – which are sometimes scams against consumers based on products that don’t exist. When they try to quit or leave the crew, they are told they are not free to go. Not all sales jobs are on the avoid list. Teens considering a sales job that does involve door-to-door activity can check out these resources for determining whether it’s a good opportunity or one to run from.

Prof to Head Health IT – National Consumers League

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by Mimi Johnson, NCL Health Policy Associate

The Obama Administration will announce its pick for the *National Coordinator for health information technology later today. David *Blumenthal, a professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital will oversee the nearly *$20 billion dollars from the economic stimulus package to build *health IT. Dr. Blumenthal worked for Senator Ted Kennedy’s Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research in the 1970s, and we are optimistic that his knowledge of and history in health policy will help move this country towards significant health reform.

The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), within the Department of Health and Human Services, will work to use the stimulus money to provide incentives and reimbursements for the use of “hardware, software, integrated technologies or related licenses, intellectual property, upgrades, or packaged solutions sold as services that are designed for or support the use by health care entities or patients for the electronic creation, maintenance, access, or exchange of health information.” According to the ARRA, “the National Coordinator may provide financial assistance to consumer advocacy groups and not-for- profit entities,” which should provide for a stronger consumer voice as the various health IT provisions are implemented. The ONC is establishing an HIT Policy Committee , on which a handful of consumer advocates will serve.

Still, billions of dollars are not the silver bullet to improving health care. In a *report last week, the difficulties of adopting health IT were discussed. Doctors struggle to make the transition – especially those in small practices. The National Consumers League will continue to work to ensure that the expansion of health IT will work to help improve quality and access for patients, as well as reduce disparities.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.