The Rundown Blog
Update: Safety Hazards in Electronic Health Records Should Be Reported, Panel Says
There’s been some movement on the question of what the government should do to make sure electronic health records are safe.
In a conference call meeting Friday, a government advisory panel signaled for the first time that they would support creating a national database and reporting system of patient safety hazards and problems stemming from electronic health records.
“What we’re really saying is we want to make it easy for providers to report unsafe conditions,” said Paul Egerman, co-chair of the panel.
The recommendation comes at a time of increasing scrutiny over the safety of electronic health records. The Obama administration hopes to create a record for every American by 2014 through spending up to $27 billion in economic stimulus money to help hospitals and doctors transition from paper records to digital ones.
We reported yesterday on a document the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had sent to 350 hospitals asking them to report any safety problems with health information technology. And we’ve written about testimony last month from experts calling for more oversight of safety problems with the digital systems.
During the call, the members of a workgroup of the Health Information Technology Policy Committee agreed that doctors and hospitals that receive stimulus money to purchase these systems should be required to confidentially report any problems that develop. Egerman also noted that the group’s call for more reporting didn’t mean that health care providers shouldn’t adopt digital systems.
“No one is saying they are dangerous. They are just saying there are things that need to be watched,” Egerman said.
The group will hold several more public discussions on this topic in the coming weeks before any final recommendations are made, expected in April.
Investigative Fund Profiled
We've been operational for about six months now, so the timing of this American Journalism Review profile of us couldn't have been sweeter.
Thanks to all of our supporters, readers and citizen journalists who have helped guide and inform our reporting and spread the word about our work.
Onward!
Update: Payday Lobby Turns to the Senate
Fresh signs surfaced today of the influential payday loan industry's muscle in Washington, where lenders' attempts to stay out of the reach of federal regulators may be bearing fruit in the U.S. Senate.
As the Investigative Fund reported last week, the industry is spending record sums -- about as much on lobbying in 2009 by JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Now The New York Times' Sewell Chan reports that Sen. Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is playing a key role negotiating with Dodd on the drafting of financial regulation legislation - and who received campaign contributions from payday lenders - has secured Dodd's agreement to scale back substantially the power that a new consumer protection agency would have over payday lenders and other nonbank companies.
The Times attributes the assertion to three unnamed sources, and says Corker achieved Dodd's assent when talks broke down with the banking committee's top Republican, Richard Shelby. Corker -- who has received thousands of dollars from payday lenders, many of whom operate in Tennessee -- asserts to Reuters that he’s all for consumer protection and, contrary to The Times’ report, “there are no carve-outs for anybody.” And Steven Schlein, a spokesman for the industry's trade association, the Community Financial Services Association, tells us that "there's no deal whatsoever. It's premature to suggest there is."
The world will know soon what Dodd and Corker decided - and how lasting the industry's impact will prove. The proposed legislation is to be made public within days. And after that? More lobbying and jockeying for votes among senators, an effort to reconcile differences with the House - no minor task, probably. And then, perhaps, a showdown with President Obama, who wants consumer protections in a new federal regulatory structure that extend to any company that provides financial services, including payday lenders.
For its part, the payday industry doesn’t seem fazed by the focus on its campaign and lobbying muscle.
Referring to the Investigative Fund’s story on its tactics, the industry's Payday Pundit blog notes: “Yes, the industry has an effective, well-organized lobbying effort and puts a lot of money behind it. While the article is not intended as a compliment, why don’t we all take it that way?”
UPDATE: Wall Street Bonus Tax Fails in Senate
The Wall Street bonus tax did not survive today in Congress. But its backers insist it may not be altogether dead.
Democratic Sens. Jim Webb of Virginia and Barbara Boxer of California had proposed a one-time 50 percent tax on bonuses of more than $400,000 awarded by the 13 firms receiving the most federal bailout money. Targeted firms included JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs.
As we reported this morning, Webb and Boxer were pushing to have the tax attached to a roughly $150 billion bill that would extend unemployment benefits and tax credits. The bill cleared an important procedural vote today, but the bonus tax was left behind.
The bonus tax could still be introduced as an amendment to another bill, congressional sources say, including the Senate’s upcoming financial regulatory reform overhaul.
"We're not done trying to get a vote," Webb said on MSNBC this afternoon.
Hard Times Update: Readers Share Tales of Foreclosure Schemes, Mortgage Misfortune
Send Us Your Tips and 'Bandit Sign' Photos
Last month, we put out a call for stories and photos to help document the effect that "Hard Times Profiteers" are having on distressed borrowers and others suffering financial hardship because of the recession. The response was robust. We received more than 100 tips from borrowers, tenants, real estate brokers, investors and others who have experienced or observed misfortune amid the current housing crisis. We also collected dozens of photos documenting bandit signs from California to Maryland, a sampling of which are below.
That nearly half of the tips we received dealt with loan modification or foreclosure rescue schemes came as no surprise -- complaints about advance-fee loans and credit repair schemes ranked 9th among those compiled in 2009 by the Federal Trade Commission, and the agency noted a 12 percent spike in fraud-related cases last year.
We're in the midst of reporting out some of the most promising leads generated by our tipsters, but in the meantime, we've published several stories to our interactive map tracking "Signs of Deception." Among the themes that emerged:
Loan Modification, Foreclosure Schemes
In one case, a woman from Mesa, Ariz. , was persuaded by a direct-mail advertisement to pay a lawyer up front for loan modification assistance. "The fee was $3800 to submit a home modification loan package... He did (at least he said he did) and I never heard anything more until about six months later I received a letter saying he was out of the home modification business and that I had $137.50 coming to me over and above the expenses it took him to submit. I was declined."
A man in Bedford Hills, N.Y. , said he turned to a modification services company after having difficulty getting through to a nonprofit counseling service. "To get in contact with them over the phone was nearly impossible," he wrote. So he paid $1,500 paid up front to a modification company that never delivered. "I got nothing done, they refused to give me my money back."
Another reader in Petaluma, Calif. , took a chance on a company called 2nd Chance Mortgage, which charged $2,400 for its modification services. The man says he volunteered tax forms and hundreds of pages of documentation over eight months, but was denied. His lender says it never received paperwork from the modification service. "Losing $2400 is bad enough but not knowing where my personal information has gone is even worse," he wrote. The state of California shut down 2nd Chance last March, but our reader worried that the company is still operating under a different name.
Investor Schemes
Borrowers aren't the only ones getting trapped. The glut of distressed homes has also drawn the interest of small investors who are then targeted by shady real estate investment companies. One couple from Trabuco Canyon, Calif. , invested with a company that promised to manage their newly-acquired rental property. The couple is facing foreclosure after the company failed to rent the property or pay the mortgage. According to the couple, the company helped investors "purchase distressed homes from banks, rehab/upgrade them, and then sell them to other investors that want a rental property. My wife and I were the 'second' investor that wanted a rental property. [They] promised to act as property manager, find renters, and guaranteed to cover the mortgage for up to one year until it was rented. After two months we asked a friend to check out the house and learned then that it was vacant."
The Tenant Victim
As foreclosures soar, renters are also finding themselves increasingly at risk of losing their housing. Many are getting caught up inadvertently in foreclosure proceedings filed against large rental-unit developments and single-unit properties. But others seem to be deliberately targeted.
A woman in Hollywood, Fla., told of a friend who fell victim to a foreclosure scheme. The woman, who has a son with severe autism, reportedly paid three months' rent in advance and signed a lease on a property that had already been foreclosed upon. "Yes, the home from which friends just helped her move had also undergone complete foreclosure with no prior notice from her landlord of many years, all the while she was paying rent."
You can see these stories and bandit sign photos plotted on our interactive map at huffpostfund.org/profiteers. We've just created a new Hard Times Profiteers group on Flickr to make it easier for you to contribute photos, but you can still submit tips and photos at huffpostfund.org. Thanks to all who've contributed already!
Afghan Contractors and the 'Taliban Tax'
Delivering the goods in a war zone is risky business. In Afghanistan, it’s work bedeviled by bribes and kickbacks.
The British commander in the south of the country has just ordered a major investigation into how bribery has corrupted private contracting in Afghanistan, according to a report by The Independent newspaper in London. Major General Nick Carter wants construction and logistic contracts examined amid “mounting concerns” that bribery to ensure safe travel has created a “billion-dollar black hole for aid funds.”
The story quotes anonymous Afghans as saying that truckers must pay bribes of up to $1,500 to drive from Karachi to Camp Bastion, the main British military base in Afghanistan –- a fee that contractors call the “Taliban tax.” At least one source who knows the route told the Huffington Post Investigative Fund that bribes are routinely calculated into the cost of doing business: “Of course, they all pay. They all have to.”
Corruption in Afghanistan is rampant. The administration of President Hamid Karzai has been blamed for allowing, if not indirectly profiting from, the bribery. The presidents’ brothers and the son of Afghanistan’s defense minister have been accused of controlling private security firms that have been paying off the Taliban.
Victim of a Real Estate Scheme? Tell Us Your Story
It’s a no-brainer: As people lose their jobs and struggle to pay the mortgage, they are increasingly vulnerable to those looking to make a quick profit off their troubles.
The Huffington Post Investigative Fund would like to shine a light on real estate schemes going on around the country. How widespread are these activities? Who is behind them? And who is getting hurt?
We’re looking for your tips and stories to help us investigate.
Consumer groups, federal authorities and state officials say that some of the most common practices that prey on desperate homeowners include:
House Flipping -- An old real estate tactic that has been resurrected in the current financial crisis, with some tweaks. Typically, speculators push distressed homeowners into selling on the cheap and then immediately resell the house to someone who, quietly, has agreed to pay a higher price.
Loan Modifications – Many people have been lured into paying upfront fees to companies or agents who promise to negotiate with lenders for lower mortgage payments. The California State Bar says it is investigating more than 300 lawyers accused of making such promises without following up.
Foreclosure ‘Rescue’ -- Once families are past the point of modifying their loans, there are plenty of traps around the foreclosure process itself. Homeowners are sometimes tricked into forfeiting their home equity, unknowingly entering bankruptcy or paying thousands of dollars in fees without receiving anything in return.
Federal investigators say some versions of these practices operate within the confines of the law, some are in a legal gray area and others amount to clear-cut fraud. In January, the FBI was investigating nearly 3,000 mortgage fraud cases, up more than 300 percent from five years ago.
“The fraud schemes have adapted with the changing economy and now individuals are preyed upon even as they are about to lose their homes,” John S. Pistole, the deputy director of the FBI, told the House judiciary committee last year.
The Huffington Post Investigative Fund wants to take a broader look at real estate schemes around the country: Have you seen signs of profiteering where you live? Have you been caught up in a scheme? Do you know someone who has? Share your story below, and we may publish your response in our interactive map.
If you don't have a personal story but are still interested in participating, you can sign up with our citizen journalist assignment desk for updates on future projects.
