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TexasTowelie's JournalCMMC could lose Medicare and Medicaid funding due to problems
LEWISTON — Central Maine Medical Center has so many problems — including a nursing error in October that left a patient paralyzed — that the federal government might stop paying for Medicare and Medicaid patients to be admitted there.
The problems were uncovered by federal investigators who visited in January, March and April. If the hospital does not correct its issues by June 30, it stands to lose tens of millions of dollars a year, a sizable chunk of its revenue.
CMMC leaders declined to answer questions about the situation. On Thursday, they issued a written statement that read, in part: “We take every patient complaint — and all feedback — very seriously. While some complaints were found to be unsubstantiated, (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) identified areas for improvement. We are working very closely with CMS to address those areas, and to ensure that we continue to provide safe, reliable and high-quality care.”
They added, “We expect the surveyors will be back next month to validate that CMMC has implemented those improvements, and we fully expect CMS to confirm our compliance.”
Read more: https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/05/02/cmmc-set-to-lose-medicare/
Cracks in party unity add challenges for Democrats who lead Maine Legislature
Democrats saw the hard part of being in control of Maine government on Thursday, with four of their senators joining with Republicans to drive a hole through a priority vaccination bill and getting the first veto from Gov. Janet Mills.
Things are getting more difficult for Democrats after a three-month honeymoon period now that key bills are moving from committees to the chamber floors. Some want to finish work on the two-year budget by month’s end, but key divides with Republicans haven’t been worked out yet.
Democratic senators divided Thursday on the vaccination bill and two other environmental protection proposals. As usual, the Senate is proving to be the more moderate chamber under the leadership of Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, who has a reputation as a hard-charger but represents a moderate district alongside many other Democrats who were key to the party’s push to win the majority in 2018.
Three of them — Jim Dill of Old Town, Erin Herbig of Belfast and Louis Luchini of Ellsworth — were among the four Democratic defectors on a bill from Rep. Ryan Tipping, D-Orono, that is aimed at addressing rising opt-out rates by repealing nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine requirements. It is backed by the Mills administration and passed the House last week.
Read more: https://bangordailynews.com/2019/05/03/politics/daily-brief/cracks-in-party-unity-add-challenges-for-democrats-who-lead-maine-legislature/
Maine loggers fight to unionize the North Woods
For generations, Maine’s notoriously independent loggers have banded together in sporadic actions against the state’s largest landowners, who hold all the power in the North Woods. But those wildcat strikes never got the woodsmen any big labor victories, and many say the deck is stacked against them more than ever when it comes to issues of work and wages.
“There’s been so many things that’s been tried over the years, I think a lot of the guys in the industry are just resigned to the fact that you can’t win,” Maine Senate President Troy Jackson told Beacon. “They just keep their head down and go.”
Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from Allagash, first fell into politics in 1998 when he led a group of loggers to use their trucks to block the access roads that the major landowners used to move temporarily-hired Canadian workers, called “bonds,” and logs across the border.
Now, he is trying a different tack. He wants to unionize the North Woods by giving loggers and truckers the ability to legally meet and try to negotiate their tonnage rates and costs.
Read more: https://mainebeacon.com/maine-loggers-fight-to-unionize-the-north-woods/
In D.C., Mainers lead protest demanding Collins support Medicare for All
More than a dozen Maine community leaders and health care advocates from across the nation filled Sen. Susan Collins office in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to demand she support Medicare for All, a proposal to achieve universal health care.
In a letter delivered to the senator’s office following the first-ever U.S. House hearing on Medicare for All, the advocates described the United States’ current healthcare system as “indefensible” and designed to profit off of ordinary people’s pain.
“We are tired of being told that healthcare is complicated when the real problem, the root problem, is that when some of us get sick, someone else gets rich,” the letter reads. “The simple, uncomplicated notion that everyone should have the care they need is a shared belief for all of us gathered today, and among millions of voters across the country.”
The letter asks Collins to commit to turning down all campaign donation from health insurers and to attending a town hall in Augusta during the August recess to discuss Medicare for All.
Read more: https://mainebeacon.com/in-d-c-mainers-lead-protest-demanding-collins-support-medicare-for-all/
'We would like to get to yes:' Lawmakers signal growing concern on Trump's Mexico-Canada trade deal
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is under growing pressure to remove tariffs on aluminum and steel as the White House pushes for approval of a massive new trade deal with Mexico and Canada.
A key Republican senator, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said this week there is no appetite in Congress to even debate the new trade agreement as long as the tariffs remain in place. Unless Trump removes them, the trade deal is dead, he wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal.
Demands to lift the levies also are coming from abroad. The new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement must be approved by all three countries, but leaders in Mexico and Canada say they don’t see a path forward while the tariffs are in effect.
“I don’t see (the pact) advancing in any of the three countries with the steel and aluminum tariffs in place,” said Daniel Ujczo, an Ohio-based attorney who specializes in international trade. “I think that’s true in Washington, Ottawa and Mexico City.”
Read more: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/03/trade-deal-donald-trumps-mexico-canada-pact-struggles-congress/3638660002/
More than 650 immigrants cross border in El Paso Sector in less than 24 hours
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 650 migrants illegally crossing the border in three separate groups in less than 24 hours.
Agents took into custody 243 Central American migrants at about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday at Camp Bounds Forward Operating Base near the Antelope Wells port of entry in New Mexico, U.S. Border Patrol officials said.
About 40 minutes later, agents in El Paso encountered a large group of about 219 people attempting to cross the border illegally at a segment of the border fence near Downtown.
On Thursday, agents apprehended about 209 migrants near Antelope Wells, officials said.
Read more: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/crime/2019/05/03/650-immigrants-enter-border-patrol-el-paso-sector-us-mexico-24-hours/3661638002/
Alaskan company, subsidiary pay $2 million to US in bribery scheme involving Fort Bliss contracts
An Alaskan company and its employees paid illegal kickbacks and bribes to a U.S. Army contractor in order to get government contracts for construction work at Fort Bliss, officials said.
The company, Kikiktagruk Inupiat Corp., and its subsidiary, KIC Development LLC, on April 13 agreed to pay more than $2 million as part of a settlement in a civil lawsuit filed by the U.S. government.
The fraud involved a contract for construction work at Fort Bliss as part of a “$3 billion effort to transform” the post, according to a complaint filed in federal court.
The scheme, which happened between 2008 to 2009, was uncovered after a company employee, Susann Campbell, came forward in January 2010 and reported the suspected crimes to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, according to court documents and officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Read more: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/crime/2019/05/02/companies-pay-2-million-us-bribes-tied-fort-bliss-contracts/3652901002/
Scooter restrictions passed by Texas Senate would ban use on sidewalks, add an age limit
The Texas Senate approved a series of rules for electric scooter use on Wednesday, sending the regulations — laid out in Senate Bill 549 — to the Texas House of Representatives for consideration.
Authored by state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, the bill would impose restrictions on using the increasingly popular method of transportation. Proposed requirements include an age limit — riders must be at east 16 years old — and a ban on sidewalk use.
While arguing for the bill on the Senate floor, West said safety concerns were the primary motivation for SB 549.
“We’re beginning to see more and more accidents that are occurring on electrical scooters,” West said. “We’re beginning to see also a change in how we use pedestrian right-of-ways in terms of sidewalks, etc. … the state needs to make sure we have some basic guidelines for those.”
Read more: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2019/05/02/scooter-restrictions-passed-by-texas-senate-would-ban-use-on-sidewalks-add-an-age-limit
Rep. Henry Cuellar: We cannot let migration issue create a trade issue
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Henry Cuellar quizzed Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Cuellar wanted to know why so many Customs and Border Protection officers were taken from land port of entry posts in the Laredo sector, which stretches from Del Rio to Brownsville.
The Laredo Democrat said it was important the officers fulfill their normal roles, and not spend time in processing centers “changing diapers.”
By being at their normal posts, legitimate trade is enhanced, Cuellar said, thus contributing to American economic prosperity, and protecting against risks to public health and safety.
Read more: https://riograndeguardian.com/cuellar-we-cannot-let-migration-issue-create-a-trade-issue/
F-bombs for 11-year-olds: some versions of STAAR test contain obscenity, TEA apologizes
Expletives are not the ideal to advance the education of 10 and 11-year-old students.
But that's what happened in at least one Texas school district.
On April 10, during a STAAR test administered by the Texas Education Agency, a fifth grade student in Lumberton Independent School District called over a school administrator, according to the TEA.
School administrators are not supposed to discuss the test questions with participants.
But, as it turns out, one image on a reading comprehension exercises contained the F-word. The obscenity appeared in a passage with embedded pictures of what appears to be an unknown graffiti park, according to the TEA.
Read more: https://www.lmtonline.com/houston/article/TEA-STAAR-Test-F-bomb-obscenity-13813449.php
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