Uncovering the Iceberg: Mandating the measurement of fraud in the United Kingdom

Having regard to the impact of the credit crunch on fraud, the 19% average cuts in public spending and the wide disparities in fraud loss data, this article will argue for the mandating of fraud measurement through the introduction of legislation in the United Kingdom. The proposed statute applies to both the public and private sectors and incorporates minimum standards of measurement accuracy and the publication of findings and subsequent reduction strategies. In support of this contention this paper offers empirical evidence provided by the United States (US) Improper Payments Information Act of 2002. Further options for change are also presented including developing the role of the National Audit Office and the creation of an infrastructure for knowledge management through the sharing of best practice.     

Mandating insurance offers for low-wage workers: an evaluation of labor market effects

Employing a simultaneous model of part-time status, health insurance offers, and wages, we examine the impacts on employment and health insurance coverage of nondiscrimination rules in the tax code governing employer-sponsored health insurance. Using 1988 and 1993 Employee Benefits Supplements to the Current Population Surveys and variations in health insurance premiums and minimum wages, we find that health insurance coverage among low-wage primary earners is increased by at most 31 percent by the policy, at a cost of an estimated 0.8-5.4-percentage-point decrease in full-time employment for low-wage workers.     

Solving certain dental records problems with technology--the Canadian solution in the Thailand tsunami response

Each natural or man-made disaster presents a different set of circumstances and, as a consequence, each event results in new challenges for response teams. The very large number of deceased victims in recent tragic events is certainly one of the enormous challenges that can tax many different resources for identification specialists. But there are other significant challenges. And during the response, some of these seem insurmountable. They can be solved if we embrace technologies outside the customary disciplines. The Canadian identification effort following the December 2004 tsunami involved responders from several disciplines. Each discipline faced challenges in many different and special areas that were difficult and in some cases previously unseen. This paper presents examples of the ways the Canadian identification team used Internet technology to solve problems that were encountered when it became necessary to duplicate victims' dental, medical and personal records, and transport these records halfway around the world. Digital images of the records were saved at high resolution in multi-page PDF files. These images were made available to on-site personnel using an encrypted, password-secured website.     

Medicare program; criteria and procedures for extending coverage to certain devices and related services--HCFA. Final rule with comment period

This final rule establishes in regulations that certain devices with an investigational device exemption (IDE) approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and certain services related to those devices may be covered under Medicare. Specifically, it sets forth the process by which the FDA will assist HCFA in identifying non-experimental investigational devices that are potentially covered under Medicare. This rule responds to the mandate that Federal agencies streamline their regulatory processes to make them less burdensome and more customer-focused. It is intended to provide Medicare beneficiaries with greater access to advances in medical technology and encourage clinical researchers to conduct high quality studies of newer technologies.     

Mandating treatment for drug possessors: The impact of Senate Bill 123 on the criminal justice system in Kansas

Kansas' Senate Bill 123 (SB 123) created mandatory community-based drug treatment for individuals convicted of first- or second-offense drug possession. This study examined the impact of SB 123 on sentencing practices, supervision, and treatment services across Kansas. The study indicated that SB 123 diverted drug possessors not from prison, as intended, but from one form of community supervision to another, subjecting more offenders to greater surveillance and longer sentences. Such “front-end” net-widening was due to the structure of the law itself and a lack of understanding of pre-implementation sentencing practices. In some counties, judges engaged in some circumvention of the law, suggesting possible local-level differences in buy-in among courtroom actors; such circumvention was also focused on offenders with more serious criminal histories, indicating judicial-level evaluations of offender amenability to treatment. While SB 123 offenders received the treatment they were assessed to need, the provision of treatment remained heavily concentrated in a few providers, increasing disparities in access to treatment and making the success of the program highly dependant on a small number of institutional actors.     

National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP): effective date provisions of coverage of certain vaccines to the vaccine injury table--HRSA. Final rule

Section 904(b) of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 provides for an excise tax for three new vaccines, effective August 6, 1997. Petitions for compensation for injuries or deaths related to hepatitis B, Hib, and varicella vaccines may now be filed under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). This technical amendment amends the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to include a date certain (August 6, 1997) in section 100.3(c) of the Vaccine Injury Compensation regulations, so that there will be no uncertainty as to the coverage of these three vaccines.     

Predicting discharge in forensic psychiatry: the legal and psychosocial factors associated with long and short stays in forensic psychiatric hospitals

In Germany, both the number of patients treated in forensic psychiatric hospitals and the average inpatient treatment period have been increasing for over thirty years. Biographical and clinical factors, e.g., the number of prior offences, type of offence, and psychiatric diagnosis, count among the factors that influence the treatment duration and the likelihood of discharge. The aims of the current study were threefold: (1) to provide an estimate of the German forensic psychiatric patient population with a low likelihood of discharge, (2) to replicate a set of personal variables that predict a relatively high, as opposed to a low, likelihood of discharge from forensic psychiatric hospitals, and (3) to describe a group of other factors that are likely to add to the existing body of knowledge. Based on a sample of 899 patients, we applied a battery of primarily biographical and other personal variables to two subgroups of patients. The first subgroup of patients had been treated in a forensic psychiatric hospital according to section 63 of the German legal code for at least ten years (long-stay patients, n=137), whereas the second subgroup had been released after a maximum treatment period of four years (short-stay patients, n=67). The resulting logistic regression model had a high goodness of fit, with more than 85% of the patients correctly classified into the groups. In accordance with earlier studies, we found a series of personal variables, including age at first admission and type of offence, to be predictive of a short or long-stay. Other findings, such as the high number of immigrants among the short-stay patients and the significance of a patient's work time before admission to a forensic psychiatric hospital, are more clearly represented than has been observed in previous research.     

Popular representations of race: the news coverage of BiDil

The BiDil story offers an ideal opportunity to explore the nature and tone of media representations of race and genetics. For example, was a biological view of race emphasized? Or was the notion of race presented in a critical fashion?     

Pulling the coverage trigger: the temporal condition of liability insurance

Timing issues will continue to be at the forefront of insurance coverage disputes for a long time, and may impact not only the question of which insurer is responsible for a particular loss, but also whether any coverage exists at all. For example, if a policyholder has self-insured for any period, the timing issue may well determine whether purchased liability insurance will afford any protection for the loss. Though courts have provided useful guidelines, in order to determine coverage the facts of each case must be carefully examined, particularly the policy language and the nature of the injury on which the claim is founded. When there are difficult timing questions, one viable approach may be for the policyholder to select a "target" insurer to sue for coverage, based in part on the timing analysis, and leave to the targeted insurer the task of seeking contribution from all other carriers potentially responsible for covering the loss.     

The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule: Some implications for the police

Since 1961, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained by unreasonable search and seizure would not be admissible as evidence in state courts, police officers have had to work within the constraints imposed by the so-called “exclusionary rule.” This article traces the history of the exclusionary rule, reviews the Supreme Court's changing rationale for its existence, and examines a variety of proposed alternatives. Law enforcement officials need to be aware of the alternatives, for virtually all of them would remove the burden of the results from the prosecutors and the courts and place them on the officer and/or the agency. This article concludes that the implications of a good faith exception have ramifications for both the officer and the agency, ramifications that would fall most heavily, however, on agency policies and resources.     

A road map for universal coverage: finding a pass through the financial mountains

Government already pays for more than half of U.S. health care costs, and nearly all universal health insurance proposals assume continued government involvement through tax subsidies and other means. The question of what specific taxes could be used to finance universal coverage is, however, seldom carefully examined, in part due to efforts by health care reform proponents to downplay tax issues. In this article we undertake such an examination. We argue that the challenges of relying on taxes for universal coverage are even greater than is generally appreciated, but that they can nevertheless be met. A proposal to fund a universal health insurance voucher system with a value-added tax illustrates issues that would arise for tax-financed plans in general and provides a broad framework for a bipartisan approach to universal coverage. We discuss significant problems that such an approach would face and suggest solutions. We outline a long-term political and legislative strategy for enacting universal coverage that draws upon precedents set by comparable legislative initiatives, including tax reform and Medicare. The results are an improved understanding of the relationship between systemic health care finance reform and taxation and a politically realistic plan for universal coverage that employs undisguised taxes.