An affordable price is probably the major benefit persuading people to buy drugs at www.americanbestpills.com. The cost of medications in Canadian drugstores is considerably lower than anywhere else simply because the medications here are oriented on international customers. In many cases, you will be able to cut your costs to a great extent and probably even save up a big fortune on your prescription drugs. What's more, pharmacies of Canada offer free-of-charge shipping, which is a convenient addition to all other benefits on offer. Cheap price is especially appealing to those users who are tight on a budget
Service Quality and Reputation
Although some believe that buying online is buying a pig in the poke, it is not. Canadian online pharmacies are excellent sources of information and are open for discussions. There one can read tons of users' feedback, where they share their experience of using a particular pharmacy, say what they like or do not like about the drugs and/or service. Reputable online pharmacy canadianrxon.com take this feedback into consideration and rely on it as a kind of expert advice, which helps them constantly improve they service and ensure that their clients buy safe and effective drugs. Last, but not least is their striving to attract professional doctors. As a result, users can directly contact a qualified doctor and ask whatever questions they have about a particular drug. Most likely, a doctor will ask several questions about the condition, for which the drug is going to be used. Based on this information, he or she will advise to use or not to use this medication.
Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion
Imagine the conversations in meetings between respective military officers of these two countries. As the United States has very little in the way of remote espionage in China and due to the expulsion of U.S. diplomatic personnel from Russia, the U.S. has even less intelligence officers in and around Russia….so, what could be coming that we may soon miss?
CHINA’S EVOLVING OVERSEAS ACCESS
China is expanding its access to foreign ports to pre-position the necessary logistics support to regularize and sustain deployments in the “far seas,” waters as distant as the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. In late November, China publicly confirmed its intention to build military supporting facilities in Djibouti “to help the navy and army further participate in United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKO), carry out escort missions in the waters near Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, and provide humanitarian assistance.” This Chinese initiative both reflects and amplifies China’s growing geopolitical clout, extending the reach of its influence and armed forces.
China’s expanding international economic interests are increasing demands for the PLAN to operate
in more distant seas to protect Chinese citizens, investments, and critical sea lines of communication
(SLOC).
China most likely will seek to establish additional naval logistics hubs in countries with which it has a
longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and a precedent for hosting foreign militaries. China’s overseas naval logistics aspiration may be constrained
by the willingness of countries to support a PLAN presence in one of their ports.
So far, China has not constructed U.S. – style overseas military bases in the Indian Ocean. China’s leaders may judge instead that a mixture of preferred access to overseas commercial ports and a limited number of exclusive PLAN logistic facilities—probably collocated with commercial ports—
most closely aligns with China’s future overseas logistics needs to support its evolving naval requirements.
Preferred access would give the PLAN favored status in using a commercial port for resupply,
replenishment, and maintenance purposes. A logistics facility would represent an arrangement in
which China leases out portions of a commercial port solely for PLAN logistics operations.
Such a logistics presence may support both civilian and military operations. China’s current naval logistics footprint in the Indian Ocean is unable to support major combat operations in South Asia. A greater overseas naval logistics footprint would better position the PLAN to expand its participation in non-war military missions, such as non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO), search-and-rescue (SAR), humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR), and sea lines of communication (SLOC) security. To some extent, a more robust overseas logistics presence may also enable China to expand its support to PKO, force protection missions, and counterterrorism initiatives.
For example, in 2015, the PLAN’s naval escort task forces performing counterpiracy escort duties in the Gulf of Aden were able to utilize Djibouti and Oman for basic resupply and replenishment. The 156 page report is here.
*** Electronic attack J-16 A dedicated electronic warfare (EW) version of the Shenyang J-16 fighter completed its maiden flight on December 18 last year. The first images of the aircraft — sometimes described as the J-16D or even J-16G — reveal several changes compared to the standard J-16 fighter-bomber: most obviously, two large EW pods on the wingtips that are very similar in appearance to the AN/ALQ-218 tactical jamming receivers used by the Boeing EA-18G Growler. The aircraft also features a new, shorter radome and the standard 30mm cannon and the optical sensor in front of the starboard side of the windshield have been removed. In addition, several conformal dielectric EW arrays can be seen around the fuselage, front section (behind the radome), and intakes. Photo
In the wake of Russia’s demonstrations of advanced electromagnetic spectrum and communications jamming capabilities, most recently displayed in their incursion into Ukraine, China also is upping its game in this space, demonstrating similar capabilities in the Pacific.
The U.S. Department of Defense, in an annual report to Congress on China’s military and security developments, assessed that the country is placing greater importance upon EW, on par with traditional domains of warfare such as air, ground and maritime.
“The [People’s Liberation Army] sees EW as an important force multiplier, and would likely employ it in support of all combat arms and services during a conflict,” the 2016 report asserts. “The PLA’s EW units have conducted jamming and anti-jamming operations, testing the military’s understanding of EW weapons, equipment, and performance. This helped improve the military’s confidence in conducting force-on-force, real-equipment confrontation operations in simulated EW environments.”
According to the report, China’s EW weapons include “jamming equipment against multiple communication and radar systems and GPS satellite systems. EW systems are also being deployed with other sea- and air-based platforms intended for both offensive and defensive operations.”More here.
***
Collaboration on Satellites
….uh huh…. Joint military operation locations:
Before Russia and China began their recent series of bilateral exercises, the key tie between Moscow and Beijing was arms sales and military technology cooperation — totaling about $26 billion from 1992 to 2006 — according to estimates cited in the report.
Russia and China are planning to merge their satellite tracking systems, RT.com is reporting.
The giant system will be able to cover most of an area including China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. according to RT, the Russian-funded news outlet.
The two nations will reportedly negotiate terms of the merger in May during a conference in China.
Russia and China will be able to share data on positions of navigation satellite groups and to improve efficiency in a real-time environment, RT reported.
The merger was initiated by Chinese officials.
“If the project is implemented, it will allow for an improvement in accuracy for both systems,” a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos was quoted.
Japan and India are getting set for their own regional navigation satellite systems, RT reported. The system is expected to be operational by the end of the year.
As AG Jeff Sessions says there will be no second special counsel as requested by several members of Congress, Andrew McCabe needs money…apparently.
Andrew McCabe – the top FBI official by fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions hours before his planned retirement – is now soliciting donations online for his legal defense fund.
“The support for Andrew #McCabe has been overwhelming, humbling & deeply appreciated,” Melissa Schwartz, a spokesperson for McCabe, tweeted Thursday. “Unfortunately, the need for a legal defense fund is a growing reality.”
Schwartz linked to a GoFundMe account sponsored by “Friends of Andrew McCabe” that displays a photo of McCabe and his family. It says it has a goal of $150,000.
The site on Thursday afternoon showed hundreds of people donating between $5 and $1,000 each, totaling almost $60,000.
Sessions fired McCabe earlier this month after the DOJ’s inspector general determined McCabe was not truthful during his review of the Clinton email investigation and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility recommended his firing.
But McCabe has defended his actions, and the GoFundMe description says McCabe’s FBI career was “long, distinguished, and unblemished.”
It says a legal defense fund is needed because he will likely have to respond to congressional inquiries, as well as the Department of Justice’s Inspector General Investigation and “any potential lawsuits he might consider.”
McCabe’s legal team is being led by former Department of Justice Inspector General Michael R. Bromwich.
McCabe was fired just days before he would have been eligible for a lifetime pension, meaning those benefits could now be in jeopardy. But the GoFundMe page said he is not using the money to replace those benefits.
“He will continue to fight for the pension and benefits he deserves, rather than accept any crowdfunding for that purpose,” it says. More here.
***
McCabe legal defense is led by a former inspector general, meanwhile Michael Horowitz, a DoJ Inspector General has his mission compounded.
Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today that, in response to requests from the Attorney General and Members of Congress, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) will initiate a review that will examine the Justice Department’s and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) compliance with legal requirements, and with
applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person. As part of this
examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications.
If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2018
D
OJ OIG Announces Initiation of Review
Department of Justice (DOJ)
Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today
that,
in response to requests from the Attorney General
and
Members of Congress, the Office
of the Inspector General (OIG) will initiate a review that will examine the Justice
Department’s
and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI)
compliance with legal requirements, and with
applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance
Court
(FIS
C)
relating to a certain
U.S. person. As part of this
examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the
DOJ
and the FBI at the
time the applications were filed
from or about an alleged FBI confidential source
. Additionally,
the OIG will review the DOJ’s
and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged
source as they relate to the FISC
applicat
ions.
If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise
during the course of the review.
###
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2018
D
OJ OIG Announces Initiation of Review
Department of Justice (DOJ)
Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today
that,
in response to requests from the Attorney General
and
Members of Congress, the Office
of the Inspector General (OIG) will initiate a review that will examine the Justice
Department’s
and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI)
compliance with legal requirements, and with
applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance
Court
(FIS
C)
relating to a certain
U.S. person. As part of this
examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the
DOJ
and the FBI at the
time the applications were filed
from or about an alleged FBI confidential source
. Additionally,
the OIG will review the DOJ’s
and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged
source as they relate to the FISC
applicat
ions.
If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise
during the course of the review.
###
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2018
D
OJ OIG Announces Initiation of Review
Department of Justice (DOJ)
Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today
that,
in response to requests from the Attorney General
and
Members of Congress, the Office
of the Inspector General (OIG) will initiate a review that will examine the Justice
Department’s
and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI)
compliance with legal requirements, and with
applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance
Court
(FIS
C)
relating to a certain
U.S. person. As part of this
examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the
DOJ
and the FBI at the
time the applications were filed
from or about an alleged FBI confidential source
. Additionally,
the OIG will review the DOJ’s
and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged
source as they relate to the FISC
applicat
ions.
If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise
For the most part, peacekeepers do not achieve the standards of their home country for military or humanitarian positions, so they are dispatched to the United Nations.
Conflicts where peacekeepers are deployed are also near countries at the top of the list.
The UN’s peacekeepers currently have operations in Western Sahara, Central African Rebpublic, Mali, Haiti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur, Syria, Cyprus, Lebanon, Abyei, South Sudan, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Liberia and India and Pakistan.
China’s peacekeepers will form part of the “Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System”, a rapid-deployment standby force.
Its move to become one of the largest forces in the UN’s peacekeepers indicates its growing presence on the world stage, while also saying that China is a responsible power.
US: Won’t pay over 25 percent of UN peacekeeping anymore
UNITED NATIONS — The United States will no longer shoulder more than a quarter of the multibillion-dollar costs of the United Nations’ peacekeeping operations, Washington’s envoy said Wednesday.
“Peacekeeping is a shared responsibility,” U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said at a Security Council debate on peacekeeping reform. “All of us have a role to play, and all of us must step up.”
The U.S. is the biggest contributor to the U.N.’s 15 peacekeeping missions worldwide. Washington is paying about 28.5 percent of this year’s $7.3 billion peacekeeping budget, though Haley said U.S. law is supposed to cap the contribution at 25 percent.
The second-biggest contributor, China, pays a bit over 10 percent.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has complained before that the budget and Washington’s share are too high and pressed to cut this year’s budget. It is $570 million below last year’s, a smaller decrease than the U.S. wanted.
“We’re only getting started,” Haley said when the cut was approved in June. It followed a $400 million trim the prior year, before Trump’s administration.
Haley said Wednesday that the U.S. will work to make sure cuts in its portion are done “in a fair and sensible manner that protects U.N. peacekeeping.”
The General Assembly sets the budget and respective contributions by vote. Spokesmen for Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declined to comment on Haley’s remarks, noting that the 193 U.N. member states will decide the budget.
Drawing over 105,000 troops, police and other personnel from countries around the world, the peacekeeping missions operate in places from Haiti to parts of India and Pakistan. Most are in African countries. The biggest is in Congo, where the Security Council agreed just Tuesday to keep the 16,000-troop force in place for another year.
Some missions have been credited with helping to protect civilians and restore stability, but others have been criticized for corruption and ineffectiveness.
In Mali, where 13,000 peacekeepers have been deployed since 2013, residents in a northern region still “don’t feel safe and secure,” Malian women’s rights activist Fatimata Toure told the Security Council on Wednesday. She said violence remains pervasive in her section of a country that plunged into turmoil after a March 2012 coup created a security vacuum.
“We have still not felt (the peacekeeping mission) deliver on its protection-of-civilians mandate,” though it has helped in some other ways, Toure said. “We feel, as civilians, that we’ve been abandoned, left to our fate.”
Peacekeeping also has been clouded by allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation. An Associated Press investigative series last year uncovered roughly 2,000 claims of such conduct by peacekeepers and other U.N. personnel around the world during a 12-year period.
Maintaining peace has become increasingly deadly work. Some 59 peacekeepers were killed through “malicious acts” last year, compared to 34 in 2016, Guterres said Wednesday. A U.N. report in January blamed many of the deaths on inaction in the field and “a deficit of leadership” from the world body’s headquarters to remote locations.
Guterres said Wednesday that the U.N. is improving peacekeepers’ training, has appointed a victims’ rights advocate for victims of sexual abuse and is reviewing all peacekeeping operations.
Still, he said, more needs to be done to strengthen peacekeeping forces and ensure they are deployed in tandem with political efforts, not instead of them. They also shouldn’t be overloaded with unrealistic expectations, he said.
“Lives and credibility are being lost,” he said. “A peacekeeping operation is not an army or a counterterrorist force or a humanitarian agency.”
Representatives from many countries also stressed a need for more focused, better prepared peacekeeping missions and more robust political peace processes.
The U.N., its member states and countries that host peacekeeping missions all “need to shoulder our responsibilities,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose country arranged the debate as this month’s Security Council president.
Okay, check this out. This is essentially a whole unique type of cyber war, this time it is the user vs. the tech companies.
That whole thing about presumed privacy and data protection is a myth…no it is a lie. Question is how long has this been going on and is it all explained in terms of service? Is privacy a human right? Nah, not when it comes to tech companies. Congress should also include Microsoft in this hearing. We just need facts to make independent decisions about how we interact on the internet and individuals must practice information hygiene when using a keyboard be it on a computer, a Mac or a smart phone. Facebook has already made some changes but are they real and effective?
The harvesting of our personal details goes far beyond what many of us could imagine. So I braced myself and had a look.
A slice of the data that Facebook keeps on the author: ‘This information has millions of nefarious uses.’ Photograph: Dylan Curran
Want to freak yourself out? I’m going to show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it.
Google knows where you’ve been
Google stores your location (if you have location tracking turned on) every time you turn on your phone. You can see a timeline of where you’ve been from the very first day you started using Google on your phone.
Here is every place I have been in the last 12 months in Ireland. You can see the time of day that I was in the location and how long it took me to get to that location from my previous one.
‘A Google map of every place I’ve been in Ireland this year.’ Photograph: Dylan Curran
Google knows everything you’ve ever searched – and deleted
Google stores search history across all your devices. That can mean that, even if you delete your search history and phone history on one device, it may still have data saved from other devices.
Google creates an advertisement profile based on your information, including your location, gender, age, hobbies, career, interests, relationship status, possible weight (need to lose 10lb in one day?) and income.
Google stores information on every app and extension you use. They know how often you use them, where you use them, and who you use them to interact with. That means they know who you talk to on Facebook, what countries are you speaking with, what time you go to sleep.
Google stores all of your YouTube history, so they probably know whether you’re going to be a parent soon, if you’re a conservative, if you’re a progressive, if you’re Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, if you’re feeling depressed or suicidal, if you’re anorexic …
The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents
Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents.
This link includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve taken on your phone, the businesses you’ve bought from, the products you’ve bought through Google …
They also have data from your calendar, your Google hangout sessions, your location history, the music you listen to, the Google books you’ve purchased, the Google groups you’re in, the websites you’ve created, the phones you’ve owned, the pages you’ve shared, how many steps you walk in a day …
Facebook offers a similar option to download all your information. Mine was roughly 600MB, which is roughly 400,000 Word documents.
This includes every message you’ve ever sent or been sent, every file you’ve ever sent or been sent, all the contacts in your phone, and all the audio messages you’ve ever sent or been sent.
‘A snapshot of the data Facebook has saved on me.’ Photograph: Dylan Curran
Facebook stores everything from your stickers to your login location
Facebook also stores what it thinks you might be interested in based off the things you’ve liked and what you and your friends talk about (I apparently like the topic “girl”).
Somewhat pointlessly, they also store all the stickers you’ve ever sent on Facebook (I have no idea why they do this. It’s just a joke at this stage).
They also store every time you log in to Facebook, where you logged in from, what time, and from what device.
And they store all the applications you’ve ever had connected to your Facebook account, so they can guess I’m interested in politics and web and graphic design, that I was single between X and Y period with the installation of Tinder, and I got a HTC phone in November.
(Side note, if you have Windows 10 installed, this is a picture of just the privacy options with 16 different sub-menus, which have all of the options enabled by default when you install Windows 10)
Privacy options in Facebook. Photograph: Dylan Curran
They can access your webcam and microphone
The data they collect includes tracking where you are, what applications you have installed, when you use them, what you use them for, access to your webcam and microphone at any time, your contacts, your emails, your calendar, your call history, the messages you send and receive, the files you download, the games you play, your photos and videos, your music, your search history, your browsing history, even what radio stations you listen to.
Here are some of the different ways Google gets your data
I got the Google Takeout document with all my information, and this is a breakdown of all the different ways they get your information.
‘My Google Takeout document.’ Photograph: Dylan Curran
Here’s the search history document, which has 90,000 different entries, even showing the images I downloaded and the websites I accessed (I showed the Pirate Bay section to show how much damage this information can do).
‘My search history document has 90,000 different entries.’ Photograph: Dylan Curran
Google knows which events you attended, and when
Here’s my Google Calendar broken down, showing all the events I’ve ever added, whether I actually attended them, and what time I attended them at (this part is when I went for an interview for a marketing job, and what time I arrived).
‘Here is my Google calendar showing a job interview I attended.’ Photograph: Dylan Curran
And Google has information you deleted
This is my Google Drive, which includes files I explicitly deleted including my résumé, my monthly budget, and all the code, files and websites I’ve ever made, and even my PGP private key, which I deleted, that I use to encrypt emails.
This is my Google Fit, which shows all of the steps I’ve ever taken, any time I walked anywhere, and all the times I’ve recorded any meditation/yoga/workouts I’ve done (I deleted this information and revoked Google Fit’s permissions).
I’ll just do a short summary of what’s in the thousands of files I received under my Google Activity.
First, every Google Ad I’ve ever viewed or clicked on, every app I’ve ever launched or used and when I did it, every website I’ve ever visited and what time I did it at, and every app I’ve ever installed or searched for.
‘They have every single Google search I’ve made since 2009.’
They also have every image I’ve ever searched for and saved, every location I’ve ever searched for or clicked on, every news article I’ve ever searched for or read, and every single Google search I’ve made since 2009. And then finally, every YouTube video I’ve ever searched for or viewed, since 2008.
This information has millions of nefarious uses. You say you’re not a terrorist. Then how come you were googling Isis? Work at Google and you’re suspicious of your wife? Perfect, just look up her location and search history for the last 10 years. Manage to gain access to someone’s Google account? Perfect, you have a chronological diary of everything that person has done for the last 10 years.
This is one of the craziest things about the modern age. We would never let the government or a corporation put cameras/microphones in our homes or location trackers on us. But we just went ahead and did it ourselves because – to hell with it! – I want to watch cute dog videos.
Dylan Curran is a data consultant and web developer, who does extensive research into spreading technical awareness and improving digital etiquette
California signed up an estimated 450,000 people under Medicaid expansion who may not have been eligible for coverage, according to a report by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s chief watchdog.
In a Feb. 21 report, the HHS inspector general estimated that California spent $738.2 million on 366,078 expansion beneficiaries who were ineligible. It spent an additional $416.5 million for 79,055 expansion enrollees who were “potentially” ineligible, auditors found.
Auditors said nearly 90% of the $1.15 billion in questionable payments involved federal money, while the rest came from the state’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal. They examined a six-month period from Oct. 1, 2014, to March 31, 2015, when Medicaid payments of $6.2 billion were made related to 1.9 million newly eligible enrollees.
There were limitations to the California review, however. The audit extrapolated from a sample of 150 beneficiaries. The authors reported a 90% confidence level in their results — whereas 95% would be more common. That meant that the number of those ineligible could have been as low as 260,000 or as high as 630,000.
“If HHS has a strong reason to believe that California is systematically making enrollment errors, it would be helpful to show that in a more robust analysis,” said Ben Ippolito, a healthcare economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “The federal government should ensure that states are being good stewards of federal money.”
Nonetheless, the audit highlighted weaknesses in California’s Medicaid program, the largest in the nation with 13.4 million enrollees and an annual budget topping $100 billion, counting federal and state money. Medicaid covers 1 in 3 Californians.
The inspector general found deficiencies in the state’s computer system for verifying eligibility and discovered errors by caseworkers. The Medicaid payments cited in the report covered people in the state’s fee-for-service system, managed-care plans, drug treatment programs and those receiving mental health services.
California’s Department of Health Care Services, which runs Medi-Cal, said in a statement that it agreed with nearly all of the auditors’ recommendations and that the agency “has taken steps to address all of the findings.”
In a written response to the inspector general, California officials said several computer upgrades were made after the audit period and before publication of the report that should improve the accuracy of eligibility decisions.
Among the 150 expansion enrollees analyzed in detail, 75%, or 112, were deemed eligible for the Medicaid program in California. Auditors discovered a variety of problems with the other 38 enrollees.
During the audit period, 12 enrollees in the sample group had incomes above 138% of the federal poverty line, making them ineligible financially for public assistance, according to the report.
In other instances, beneficiaries were already enrolled in Medicare — the federal health insurance for people 65 and older or who have severe disabilities — and did not qualify for Medi-Cal. One woman indicated she didn’t want Medi-Cal but was enrolled anyway.
In 2014, the state struggled to clear a massive backlog of Medi-Cal applications, which reached about 900,000 at one point. Many people complained about being mistakenly rejected for coverage, or their applications were lost in the state or county computer systems.
California was one of 31 states to expand Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The health law established a higher federal reimbursement for these newly eligible patients, primarily low-income adults without children. After expansion started in 2014, the HHS inspector general’s office began reviewing whether states were determining eligibility correctly and spending taxpayer dollars appropriately.
In a similar audit released in January, the inspector general estimated that New York spent $26.2 million in federal Medicaid money on 47,271 expansion enrollees who were ineligible for coverage. (The sample size there was 130 enrollees.) Overall, New York had far fewer expansion enrollees and related spending than California.
“It is inevitable that in a big rollout of new eligibility for any public program there are going to be glitches in implementation,” said Kathy Hempstead, a health policy expert and senior advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “The inspector general wants to make sure that states are being sufficiently careful.”
The California audit didn’t request a specific repayment from the state, but the findings were sent to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for review. CMS officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Donald White, a spokesman for the inspector general’s office, said the agency stood by the report’s findings and declined to comment further.
Electronic attack J-16
Before Russia and China began their recent series of bilateral exercises, the key tie between Moscow and Beijing was arms sales and military technology cooperation — totaling about $26 billion from 1992 to 2006 — according to estimates cited in the report.
