Stuff in the News: DHS Funding, Child Abuse, Farmer's Market, Selling Baby Parts, Medicare Fraud

The House Appropriations Committee passed its fiscal year 2016 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations bill. The bill provides funds to secure the nation’s border, enforce immigration laws, combat smugglers, protect against cyber threats, respond to natural disasters, and fight terrorism. In addition, the bill improves oversight of DHS to hold this Administration accountable to the American people. The bill does not contain funds to implement President Obama's executive action on immigration, and specifically bars the use of funds for these activities while there are legal proceedings on the issue.

Congresswoman Katherine Clark (D-Mass) and Congressman Joe Heck (R-NV) introduced the Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Act, legislation to protect children from sexual abuse. The proposed legislation funds school programs that provide age-appropriate lessons to primary and secondary school students on how to recognize and safely report sexual abuse. The Child Sexual Abuse Awareness and Prevention Act provides federal funding to develop, implement or expand these programs for students, teachers, and guardians.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has declared Aug 2 through 8, 2015, as "National Farmers Market Week." The declaration was made official by proclamation signed by Secretary Vilsack. This year marks the 16th annual National Farmers Market Week in honor of the important role that farmers markets play in local economies. Throughout the week, USDA will celebrate thousands of our nation's farmers markets, the farmers and ranchers who make them possible and the communities that host them.

Center for Medical Progress released the results of a three-year investigation into the handling of the remains of aborted babies at Planned Parenthood centers. What it uncovered was shocking. Officials at the highest levels of Planned Parenthood were aware of, and seemingly complicit in, the selling of whole cadavers and/or parts of the aborted babies for a profit. In support of its claims, CMP released a video showing Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s senior director of medical services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, describing how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted fetuses, and admitting she uses partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts. In addition to the demand that the government suspend Medicaid reimbursements, American Life League has called on the members of Congress to immediately begin hearings and institute an investigation into Planned Parenthood.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) flaunted the supposed success of their “cutting-edge technology” designed to identify and prevent improper Medicare payments. CMS claimed to have saved the Medicare Trust Fund $820 million since 2010 through the “Fraud Prevention System” (FPS). What was missing from the CMS statement was any mention of the most successful Medicare fraud prevention tool in history: The Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program. Since it was implemented nationwide in January 2010, the RAC program has returned more than $9.7 billion to the Medicare Trust Fund. Until the program was stymied and certain audits were suspended by CMS in October 2013, RACs were recovering about $1 billion per quarter, which would eclipse CMS’s FPS’s $820 million over a three year period. Plus, unlike the FPS, the RACs operate at zero taxpayer expense. They are compensated only if they correctly identify and recover improper payments.