Datasets:
Recag
/
C4_15

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
Community
text
stringlengths
11
95.8k
Meanwhile, the House veterans’ affairs subcommittee on disability assistance and memorial affairs held a first ever hearing last month on legislation to address financial abuses of the pension program. The Veterans Care Financial Protection Act (now HR 3122) was first introduced in 2014.
The VA pension program exists to help veterans in financial distress if they served at least a day of wartime service, at least 90 consecutive days on active duty and earned an honorable or a general discharge. To be eligible for the basic VA pension, veterans also must have only modest annual incomes or none at all.
They can qualify for more VA financial help, however, if they are disabled and unable to leave their homes unassisted, or they have unmet daily living needs or they face exorbitant medical, assisted care or nursing home costs. The additional financial help is called the VA Aid and Attendance benefit.
About 303,000 wartime veterans and 220,000 survivors draw VA pension benefits. Veteran advocates believe thousands more would qualify if they knew the program existed and applied. What has raised the profile of pensions recently, however, have been the reports of abuse and target marketing by unscrupulous financial planners, lawyers or even care facilities seeking vets who are ill or elderly.
The pension is a needs-based benefit with need determined using thresholds on annual incomes and on assets or net worth. For example, a wartime vet with no dependents can qualify for all or a portion of the basic pension benefit if he or she has income, including social security, less than $12,907 annually. If income is $10,000, for example, the benefit would be calculated by the maximum annual pension rate of $12,907 minus $10,000, for a total of $2907 annually.
However, the pension benefit is unique in that it allows veterans to apply medical expenses to offset income calculations and raise the benefit. Even higher amounts are payable if the veteran or surviving spouse is housebound, and more aid and attendance dollars are available if claimants need help with daily activities.
A married veteran needing aid and attendance can qualify for at least some pension monthly if his or her income doesn’t exceed $25,525. A survivor’s pension is smaller but also based on need with consideration too of medical expenses.
The other threshold to determine eligibility is net worth. If assets other than primary residence and vehicle exceed $80,000, then VA can’t assume eligibility without a closer determination. Again, medical-related expenses can be critical. For example, if a veteran with assets totaling $100,000 moves into an assisted living facility that costs $5000 a month, a VA service officer could determine the asset threshold quickly will be reached and can find the veteran eligible for pension.
Veterans and survivors who believe they might qualify should contact the veterans’ service office for their county to fill out required forms. More program information can be found online at: http://benefits.va.gov/PENSION/index.asp .
A key purpose of regulatory reforms aimed at VA pension benefits is to ensure they are used by low-income veterans or those facing exorbitant medical expenses they can’t pay, rather than be used as a tool to preserve family wealth.
One provision in VA’s draft rule would impose a three-year look-back provision on assets to discourage new claimants from hiding assets. Other changes would reset the asset ceiling to the higher and “brighter line” used by Medicaid, and more clearly define medical expenses that can reduce income calculations. The new rule would not leave the threshold on assets open to interpretation as it is now.
Legislative reforms, which show signs of life, take a different approach. As Rep. Matthew Cartwright (D-Pa.) testified last month on behalf of his bill, HR 3122, it would direct VA and other federal agencies to work with state officials and outside experts to establish state and federal standards to end “dishonest, predatory or otherwise unlawful practices” that target VA aid and attendance dollars.
“Unscrupulous actors are increasingly exploiting this assistance program by preying on our older veterans’ vulnerability,” to waste federal dollars and turn “this well-deserved benefit into a financial nightmare for those who can least afford it,” said Cartwright.
Increasingly, he said, retirement homes are recruiting veteran residents with promises that they will qualify for VA aid and attendance to cover cost of the home.
“If the A&A claim is later denied, however, the nursing home then demands back payment from the veteran. This is a practice that leaves vulnerable elderly veterans with the undesirable choice of draining their own remaining assets or giving up their new home,” Cartwright said.
He first introduced his bill on learning of companion legislation in the Senate (now S. 1198) from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The bill now has bipartisan support in the subcommittee. Witnesses for VA and veteran service organizations expressed support. Cartwright promised some changes to reflect concerns from the GAO that it shouldn’t be given a role in establishing the new protection standards, given its responsibilities also for reviewing how the standards are implemented.
With no costs attached, the bill is expected to clear the subcommittee this fall. Full committee action and passage by the House isn’t expected this year.
Within one brutal hour yesterday, Bitcoin’s price plummeted by around $800. The coin is trading under $5,800 for the first time since its October 2017 boom, and cryptocurrency investors are hurting on a global scale. East Coast investors found they’d lost their appetite for lunch; West Coast investors, three hours behind, wished they’d stayed in bed. And while asset diversification remains the best investment strategy, even investors with diverse crypto portfolios have not escaped unscathed. For better or for worse, the crypto market as a whole tends to follow Bitcoin’s lead, especially when Bitcoin slides. And so, Ethereum has gone down by 15 percent, while XRP and BTC have diminished by 13 percent and 12 percent respectively. Even shiba inu-themed Dogecoin is down, proving that canine cuteness is no hedge against market fluctuation.
Some of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in the cryptocurrency community today stems from the impending Bitcoin Cash hard fork, which happens at 8:40 am Pacific time. A change in the governing protocol of Bitcoin Cash means holders of that cryptocurrency will, after the fork, own shares in two separate iterations of coin. The industry has endured splits before — Bitcoin Cash is itself the result of a contested hard fork — and has come back stronger. Bitcoin reached its highest valuation ever less than six months after the Bitcoin Cash hard fork. Still, we can hardly expect investors to remain unrattled in the face of the consternation and upheaval that a hard fork inspires.
Predicting the traditional markets is hard enough. Analysts have been doing it for over a century and still encounter both wild and feral bulls. The crypto market presents an even greater challenge for a few reasons. First, crypto, for all the maturity it has developed in the past decade, remains a young asset. Second, and perhaps more importantly, blockchain-powered assets are not subject to traditional economic controls or specific investor protections and are not tied to central banks or governments. Price is the main metric of performance — it’s the easiest to chart and the simplest to understand, yet it only represents a portion of a given coin’s true value. The old guard knows that value and price have never been synonymous, but finding, synthesizing, and presenting this data has long been a challenge.
Blockchain data player CoinDesk just launched a tool yesterday to help institutions and investors better analyze the potential and longevity of specific cryptocurrencies. While they’re not neglecting price, their new tool provides a robust suite of indicators and metrics, including social interest, developer interest, exchange volume, mining revenue, and transaction quantity.
This much-needed tool will help provide answers about specific tokens and firms, but this young industry still lacks an overall market health index, or at least comprehensive data comparable to how the property market, equities market, and commodities markets are measured. It’s far easier to predict swings in the more traditional markets, and while cryptocurrency has a historical record of peaks and troughs, coupled with fancy graphs, extrapolated data sets and “best-guess”’ analyst predictions, it’s not quite enough for retail and institutional investors to take massive gambles. More nuanced and holistic rubrics are vital for the maturation of the industry. Perhaps speculators would be slower to dump assets if only they could see the full picture at a single glance.
Rikesh Thapa is Cofounder and CTO of blockchain event-ticketing company Blockparty.
Cannot change network type from cable to wireless. The option to do so is grayed out. Anyway to fix this?
Go get a Roku or Fire TV stick if you want a smart(er) TV.
Smart pointers are about communicating something to the reader.
std::unique_ptr<Foo> foo ; // I own this, I can move ownership but I cant (share/copy), lifetime is as mine.
std::shared_ptr<Foo> foo; // I have an interest in this, it might outlive me, but my share keeps it alive.
std::weak_ptr<Foo> foo; // I have an interest in this, but my interest doesn't keep it alive.
Foo * foo; // a wild pointer, set to whatever what on the stack last.
That’s not the way it works at the University of Michigan Health System, where lawyers and doctors say admitting mistakes up front and offering compensation before being sued have brought about remarkable savings in money, time and feelings.
“What we are doing is common decency,” said Richard Boothman, a veteran malpractice defense lawyer and chief risk officer for a health system with 18,000 employees and a $1.5 billion annual budget.
The estimated $5.8 billion annual cost of malpractice claims nationwide has drawn scrutiny as President Barack Obama and Congress plot an overhaul of the nation’s $2.4 trillion health care system. So far, Obama has spoken in broad terms about shielding doctors from unwarranted lawsuits without capping damage awards, but medical malpractice is an issue that deeply divides. Doctors, hospitals, trial lawyers and patient advocates disagree not only on the solution but the problem itself.
Is it the high price of malpractice insurance? The difficulty for victims of medical errors getting justice? The cost of unneeded tests ordered by lawsuit-wary doctors? The “burying” of medical errors that kill tens of thousands of Americans yearly?
Officials at the University of Michigan say their approach addresses doctor, patient and public concerns.
The willingness to admit mistakes goes well beyond decency and has proven a shrewd business strategy, according to a 2009 article in the “Journal of Health & Life Sciences Law” by Boothman and four colleagues at the Ann Arbor school.
According to Boothman, malpractice claims against his health system fell from 121 in 2001 to 61 in 2006, while the backlog of open claims went from 262 in 2001 to 106 in 2006 and 83 in 2007. Between 2001 and 2007, the average time to process a claim fell from about 20 months to about eight months, costs per claim were halved and insurance reserves dropped by two-thirds.
Boothman said the health system learns of possible medical errors from doctors themselves, as well as from patients or their lawyers. In any case, the university conducts a peer review to see if there was an error and if changes are needed to prevent a recurrence.
Equally important, health system doctors and officials offer to meet with patients and their families, sometimes to explain that treatment was appropriate and sometimes to admit a mistake.
Malpractice lawyer Norman Tucker has several active cases against the University of Michigan and said the school is fair, though not an easy mark. Lawyers say because Michigan admits mistakes in some cases, it can signal a tough fight ahead in those cases where it denies error.
“You should follow Mark Twain’s advice: `When in doubt, tell the truth,”‘ Tucker said.
According to Harvard Medical School Dean Dr. Joan Reede, patients and their families can find great relief and comfort when a doctor promptly admits an error. She learned this personally when her mother nearly died from a medical error in 1998.
Tommye Reede of Hull, Mass., spent eight weeks in a hospital after hip surgery when doctors at first failed to spot a severe allergic reaction despite warnings from her medically trained daughter.
“When you get what you consider to be a sincere apology, you always feel better,” said her mother, now 79, who didn’t sue.
Mother and daughter talked about the experience in a 2006 doctor training DVD “When Things Go Wrong” by Dr. Tom Delbanco of the Harvard Medical School. They declined to name the hospital, saying they didn’t want to single it out for attention.
The openness approach is catching on at places from Boston Medical Center to the University of Illinois to California’s Stanford University hospital.
“Apologies for medical errors, along with upfront compensation, (reduces) anger of patients and families, which leads to a reduction in medical malpractice lawsuits and associated defense litigation expenses,” according to Doug Wojieszak, spokesman for The Sorry Works! Coalition. The group includes doctors, lawyers, insurers and patient advocates.
The “saying sorry” movement has its skeptics, even among those who agree it’s the right thing to do.
The right of injured patients to sue health care providers and force them to open up their internal records is a crucial part of reducing medical mistakes and improving care, said Matthew Gaier, co-chairman of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association’s medical malpractice committee.
Harvard University public health associate professor David Studdert says a review of published studies shows about 181,000 people are severely hurt each year as a result of mistakes at U.S. hospitals but only about 30,000 file legal claims.
Many people don’t sue because they don’t discover they’re victims of malpractice, Studdert and colleagues wrote in a 2007 article in the journal “Health Affairs.” The spread of disclosure, the article said, could cause malpractice costs to rise from $5.8 billion now to between $7 billion and $11.3 billion a year.
For “saying sorry” to work, doctors need protection from having their own honesty used against them in court, said Jim Copland, director of the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy and an advocate of curbs on damage suits. Protection could take the form of a shield law that would exclude an apology from admission as evidence in a malpractice suit. A number of states have or are considering such laws.
“If you go out and say, `Oh, we messed up, are you going to lose the lawsuit? You need to give them some protection,” Copland said.
The concept (lcsh)Tombs--Egypt--Tell el-Amarna. represents the subject, aboutness, idea or notion of resources found in Boston University Libraries.
1 Items that share the Concept (lcsh)Tombs--Egypt--Tell el-Amarna.
Data Citation of the Concept (lcsh)Tombs--Egypt--Tell el-Amarna.
Durant 15-23 7-7 43, D.Green 4-8 2-2 10, McGee 5-7 0-0 10, Curry 3-16 4-4 11, K.Thompson 4-11 0-0 10, Bell 4-5 2-4 10, Looney 0-0 0-0 0, West 0-2 0-0 0, Livingston 4-5 0-0 8, McCaw 0-0 0-0 0, Young 0-0 0-0 0, Iguodala 3-4 2-2 8. Totals 42-81 17-19 110.
James 13-28 6-7 33, Love 6-13 5-5 20, T.Thompson 4-8 0-1 8, Hill 2-6 0-0 5, Smith 5-14 0-0 13, Nance Jr. 2-4 1-2 5, J.Green 1-4 0-0 3, Korver 0-4 0-0 0, Hood 7-11 1-2 15. Totals 40-92 13-17 102.
3-Point Goals_Golden State 9-26 (Durant 6-9, K.Thompson 2-5, Curry 1-10, D.Green 0-2), Cleveland 9-31 (Love 3-7, Smith 3-10, Hill 1-2, J.Green 1-3, James 1-6, Hood 0-1, Korver 0-2). Fouled Out_None. Rebounds_Golden State 37 (Durant 13), Cleveland 47 (Love 13). Assists_Golden State 27 (D.Green 9), Cleveland 20 (James 11). Total Fouls_Golden State 20, Cleveland 18. Technicals_D.Green, Golden State coach Warriors (Defensive three second), T.Thompson. A_20,562 (20,562).
And just like that, the first three months of 2011 are in the books.
It's been a volatile but ultimately rewarding quarter. The Dow's 6.4% year-to-date gain marks the gauge's strongest start since 1999. Most companies appear to be doing their best to bounce back from the recession.
It's not all Eskimo kisses and high-fives, though.
There are still plenty of companies that aren't posting stronger earnings than they did a year ago. Let's go over a few of the names that are expected to post flat profitability or go the wrong way on the bottom line next week.
There will likely be more companies posting lower earnings next week; these are just a few of the names that really jump out at me.
Let's start with AngioDynamics. The provider of minimally invasive medical devices used in the treatment of peripheral vascular disease and cancer is eyeing a slight dip in profitability when it reports Tuesday afternoon. The good news here is that AngioDynamics has come through with better-than-expected net income in five of the past six quarters. In other words, it wouldn't be a shocker to see the medical products company improve on the previous year's quarter.
It'll be a higher hurdle for Apogee Enterprises to clear. The maker of coated glass for architectural installations is likely to post a quarterly deficit after squeezing through with a small profit a year earlier. Apogee's CEO also announced that he would be stepping down earlier this year, so the company has more on its plate than just the bottom line.
Immucor isn't exactly bleeding heavily. The blood transfusion specialist is expected to earn $0.27 a share, just shy of the $0.28 a share it posted a year earlier. However, this used to be an all-weather company. This is expected to be Immucor's first quarter in years where it falls short of the prior year's profitability.
Constellation Brands lives for happy hour. The company behind Mondavi wines and heartier spirits may have the best shot of all of these six companies to edge out last year's fiscal performance. Constellation has topped Wall Street's income targets in each of the past seven quarters, and the pros are braced for just a small downtick next week.
Rite Aid is the leveraged drugstore chain that could afford a trip to the aisle where it stocks Visine. Maybe that would get the red out, since Rite Aid has posted nearly four years of quarterly losses.
It's not a sector malfunction. Walgreen (NYSE: WAG) has been consistently profitable during Rite Aid's darkest stretches.
Rite Aid is the only company on the list that is expected to match last year's bottom-line performance, but nobody will be cheering a quarterly deficit of $0.24 a share.
Finally, we have Richardson Electronics. The maker of components for the electron-tube and display systems markets is barreling toward a disappointing reversal of fortune. Richardson will be swapping quarters for pennies on a per-share basis.
These seven companies have seen better days. The market has rewarded many of these stocks with reasonable gains over the past year, but they still haven't earned those upticks.
What's Worse: Sovereign Debt or Climate Change?
In our present money crunch, the nation's debt crisis is often presented as a risk to future generations but economist Dean Baker says the real cross-generational threat is global warming.
Amidst the developed world's debt crisis, funds promised to help mitigate climate change are coming up short. But given the scale of global warming, concern for our own future generations now coincides with those of other nations. Economist Dean Baker dismisses the notion that solving our budget crisis (through austerity measures) should take priority over solving climate change problems: "If the deficit has little to with the well being of our children and grandchildren, global warming has everything to do with it."
Baker argues that the budget deficit is not a cross-generational problem because future generations, when they pay back the debt, will essentially be paying themselves. And the large portion of our debt is that owned by other countries? Baker says those concerned about trade deficits should be focusing on making the dollar more competitive, i.e. weakening it. The main factor that will contribute to our children's well being is the economy. And that depends, says Dean, on good education, good infrastructure and the natural environment.
Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid Mubarak, Eid Saeed! Kulla Am Wa Antum Bi Khair, Salamet Hari Raya Aid il fitri, Happy Eid, these are the various ways of greeting on this auspicious day of Eid.
On this joyful celebration of Eid, I decided to carve yet another pumpkin to dedicate to our muslim brothers and sisters.
I have carved the pumpkin with muslim religious symbols like ? Masjid, Star and Crescent Moon. This pumpkin was carved just the way I carved on the occasion of Diwali.
Eid Mubarak to all our readers.
Twitter user Orli Yakuel, with 650 followers, had a nasty surprise this morning – her direct messages (private messages between two Twitter users) showed up in her normal Twitter stream (and were subsequently published to her FriendFeed account). Friends messaged her to tell her about the embarrassing issue.
At first she tried to delete the private messages and posted the notice above, but she then simply deleted her entire Twitter account (it was here). I saw it before deletion, however, and it clearly contained very private messages, exposed to anyone who went to her page. One user messaged her that it had happened to him as well, but I have not verified it personally.
We’re seeing an increasing trend of privacy issues pop up around new web applications and all this distributed data.
It’s the middle of the night, so I’m not going to get a response from Twitter on this until morning. If you want to delete private messsages, click on the Direct Messages link in Twitter on the right sidebar area. You have to delete them one at a time.
Orli’s blog is here, and she also created the Web 2.0 Directory website.
Update: It looks like this is a problem caused by GroupTweet, a newish third party Twitter application that allows users to direct message a lot of people at once. Orli says that she tested the application earlier today, and a number of commenters are pointing out that it may be the problem. GroupTweet requires you to create a new Twitter account to use with the service, and tell it the credentials for the account. But if you accidentally enter your primary account credentials instead, it will expose your direct messages to the public. This is not a Twitter API issue as far as I can tell, it’s a problem with the fact that GroupTweet is confusing and if you make a mistake, your direct messages are made public. This is particularly an issue for non-native English users when using it. I could have very easily made this mistake when testing the application.
Saint Kentigern has asked College Sport Auckland to lead an arbitration process in ensuring a successful 2019 School Rugby 1A 1st XV competition, David Hodge, Head of Saint Kentigern said today.
“We support a successful school rugby culture and we are delighted College Sport Auckland has confirmed it is ready to act in this role so that we can all look forward to a successful and enjoyable season,” he said.
Mr Hodge said Saint Kentigern remains fully committed to participating with one set of rules applying equally to all teams.
He said the College would go into arbitration in a spirit of wanting to resolve all issues, while at the same time needing to honour commitments that had already been entered into in good faith some time ago with five boys and their families, who had also made a commitment to coming to the College.
“We look forward to resolving this matter and to a successful and rewarding season for all teams,” he said.
Russian new car sales rose 80 percent in November, the most in two years, as the economy rebounded and the government extended its rebate program for used vehicles, the Association of European Businesses said Wednesday.
Sales of automobiles and light trucks reached 189,902 vehicles last month, pushing the year-to-date total to 1.7 million, or 28 percent more than for the same period last year, the association said in a statement.
Sales may reach 1.9 million units this year, which is “significantly beyond any previous forecasts,” David Thomas, chairman of the AEB’s automobile-manufacturers committee, said in an e-mailed statement.
The government is spending at least 21.5 billion rubles ($687 million) this year on cash incentives for automobile purchases. Russia is following countries around the world that extended incentive programs to reverse slumps in car sales during the worst global slowdown since World War II.
“Clearly the scrappage scheme and improving credit availability have combined with increased consumer confidence to deliver growth across all segments and most brands,” Thomas said.
Foreign carmakers including Volkswagen, Ford Motor and Toyota Motor are increasing output in Russia and rolling out new models as the country’s economy expands.
The four best-selling models through November are all Ladas, made by AvtoVAZ, the country's largest automaker, followed by Ford’s Focus and Renault’s Logan, which are made in Russia.
Move Over Dark Matter, MOND Is Back?