Feed aggregator

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for its newsletters.

The candidates running for lieutenant governor are apt to hint at the post’s largely symbolic and overlooked status when discussing their ambitions for the statewide office.

It’s true that California’s lieutenant governor is mostly a ceremonial position. Eleni Kounalakis, who currently holds the position, is next in line if the governor is absent or vacates the office, such as when they’re out-of-state, undergoing surgery or if they die. Kounalakis, who terms out this year, is also president of the state Senate and can cast a rare tiebreaking vote if called upon. Most of her influence lies within higher education, where she sits on all three of the state’s higher education boards.

ELECTION 2026: Read more local, state and national coverage here from Lookout and our content partners

Because of this, the four major leading candidates for the office in the upcoming June primary are emphasizing the sway they’d like to have on higher education, such as freezing tuition or cutting back on remedial coursework.

Previous lieutenant governors have used the office as a stepping stone to the state’s top job, including Gov. Gavin Newsom who held the position for eight years before his election in 2018. 

But it’s still mostly unknown to voters and suffers a poor reputation.

“I called the lieutenant governor sort of the Seinfeld of state government, because nobody knows who it is, and then they think it’s a job about nothing,” Gloria Romero, a Republican candidate, told CalMatters.

The major Democratic candidates include Josh Fryday, who leads volunteer programs in the Newsom administration, state Treasurer Fiona Ma, who terms out this year, and former Stockton mayor Michael Tubbs. 

Here is what each candidate, in alphabetical order, said about how they’d approach the gig.

Josh Fryday Josh Fryday leads volunteer programs in the Newsom administration. Credit: JoshFryday.com

Fryday said one of his biggest priorities as lieutenant governor would be to try to get California community colleges to credential more trade workers to help build more clean energy projects and boost the state’s renewable energy supply.

Prior to becoming part of the governor’s cabinet in 2019, he was the CEO of NextGen America, a clean advocacy organization started by billionaire Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer.

He also said he would push for developing more student housing on public land to increase enrollment and create more revenue to stem rising tuition costs.

The former mayor of Novato also emphasized expanding the volunteer service program he helped develop as chief service officer in Newsom’s cabinet. He would like it to include more community colleges and universities. In addition to Newsom’s support, he’s endorsed by the California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers. 

Janelle Kellman Janelle Kellman is a climate attorney and former mayor of Sausalito. Credit: JanelleKellman.com

Former Sausalito mayor Janelle Kellman wants to make community college free and expand training programs for in-demand jobs as a member of the state’s higher education boards. But the lieutenant governor is one of 18 members on the University of California board of regents and has limited capacity to enact a single policy change. 

Kellman has received support from the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and the LGBTQ Stonewall Democratic Club.

The lieutenant governor has no role in electricity regulation or insurance. But Kellman, a climate attorney, said she would work to cut utility costs by getting rid of extra electricity fees. She also said she’d work with the insurance commissioner to reduce premiums for homeowners who take preventive measures to mitigate wildfire risks.

Kellman spent 10 years in local government on Sausalito’s planning commission and city council and is the founder of a climate nonprofit focused on sea level rise.

She also supports building more student housing.

Fiona Ma

Finding other ways to generate revenue for California State universities outside the general fund is one way Ma would look to lower the cost of housing and tuition. She supports partnering more with private companies to lease out spaces such as campus theaters when they’re not being used.

Ma has an exhaustive resume in local and state politics: She spent six years in the Assembly after one term on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and was on the Board of Equalization for four years before she was elected state treasurer in 2019.

As treasurer, she has issued housing bonds to California universities, which she said has given her “a different perspective” on how to build more student housing.

“Some of them do have land and they are working with some of the developers that have a speciality with building student housing” she said. 

Ma is endorsed by the California Democratic Party and construction and hospitality unions. She was accused of sexual harassment in 2021 by a former employee, who said Ma required her to share a hotel room with her and bought her gifts. The state, using taxpayer dollars, settled the lawsuit for $350,000 in 2024.

Ma has repeatedly denied the accusations and called the lawsuit “frivolous.”

It took up three years of her life, and voters still elected her, she said. “I still got all the same endorsements that I got the first time I ran in 2018,” Ma said. “I’ve gotten even more support for my lieutenant governor’s race.”

Gloria Romero Republican Gloria Romero served in the California Assembly and was the first woman to become majority leader in the state Senate. Credit: GloriaRomero4LtGov.com

Romero, a Democrat-turned-Republican, supports school vouchers to let parents use taxpayer dollars to pay for private school education — which teachers unions vehemently oppose. She also supports slashing remedial coursework to help students finish their degrees faster.

A former assemblymember and first woman to become Senate Majority Leader, Romero spent 12 years representing east Los Angeles in the state Legislature as a Democrat until 2010. She switched parties in 2024 and announced her lieutenant governor run as a joint ticket with Steve Hilton, one of the leading Republican candidates for governor.

On how she’d navigate negotiating with the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature and on numerous boards as a rare Republican, Romero said she would individually meet with each colleague to see where their priorities overlap.

Michael Tubbs Michael Tubbs was the first Black mayor of Stockton, elected in 2016 at age 26. Credit: MichaelTubbsforCA.com

Tubbs is looking to return to office to help drive down the cost of higher education more than a decade after skyrocketing to political stardom in Stockton as one of the youngest big city mayors in the county.

His ascent as the city’s first Black and youngest mayor at 26 in 2016 garnered him national attention as the son of a single mother raised in a poor neighborhood who climbed his way to full ride at Stanford.

He supports freezing tuition at all public colleges by cutting “administrative bloat,” cutting remedial coursework that doesn’t count toward graduation requirements and streamlining programs for in-demand industries such as nursing.

Tubbs is a special economic adviser to the governor and leads the nonprofit organizations Poverty in California and Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, dedicated to implementing universal basic income pilot programs in cities across the state, a flagship initiative of his mayorship.

California’s major public employee union, Service Employees International, is supporting Tubbs.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

The post Meet the candidates for California lieutenant governor: ‘A job about nothing’ appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

On Friday, International Workers’ Day, tens of thousands of people across the US will walk out of school, skip work, and refrain from shopping as part of a nationwide economic blackout against President Donald Trump’s agenda. Organizers with the May Day Strong coalition, a coalition of labor unions and community groups, are helping oversee more than 3,500 marches, rallies, and teach-ins. The coalition’s May Day action is inspired by the mass popularity of the Day of Truth and Freedom, in January, when more than 70,000 people took to the streets in Minnesota to demand ICE leave their state.

But are either of these events general strikes? And does it matter?

To better understand this moment, I spoke with Erik Loomis, a labor historian at the University of Rhode Island and author of Organizing America and A History of America in Ten Strikes. We discussed the history of the general strike in America, the legal barriers hindering today’s labor movement, and how workers can use their strategic power to stand up to the Trump administration.

This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.

What is a general strike, and how does it differ from a typical labor strike?

A regular strike comes out of a workplace. It’s usually affiliated with a singular workplace action by a group of workers who are angry about something going on in the workplace. They’re trying to form a union and the company won’t negotiate, or they have a union and the company won’t come up with a fair contract.

The idea behind a general strike is that the workers writ large, workers generally, will all come together and walk out in favor of some goal—a kind of broad-based revolution. It can be across sectors. Let’s say I go on strike as a college professor because my university is treating me really badly, and the hospital workers also walk out on strike with me. They’re trying to use their influence over their sector of the economy to increase the stress of the conditions so that I can win what I want to win. It doesn’t have to be about the workplace if a bunch of unions come together. Part of what they were trying to do in Oakland in 1946, for instance, was to overthrow the Republican political machine that controlled the city.

Has the US ever had a true general strike? What conditions preceded them, and what were the demands?

Basically every general strike in the US has come out of the established labor movement. We’re talking about Seattle in 1919, San Francisco in 1934, Oakland in 1946, New Orleans in 1892. These general strikes have been attempts by the labor movement that usually come out of a specific workplace issue but then explode as part of a general discontent with the system as it exists at that time—to place pressure on employers, the city, the forces of order.

“If people can use these terms in order to push for a more just world, then that’s a heck of a lot more important than whether it technically is or is not a general strike.”

In Seattle in 1919, it’s very much about employers not raising wages on docks after World War I, and the Seattle labor movement comes together as one to try to force a general increase in wages. In San Francisco in 1934, the longshoremen were led by the famed radical Harry Bridges, who had come out of the Industrial Workers of the World, in an attempt to form a union, which the companies and the police were very strongly resisting. In Oakland in 1946, it starts at a department store and spreads throughout the city of Oakland. In that case, it’s very much also about wages.

These have not always really been that radical. But the second thing you have to understand is that the general strike—or more specifically, sympathy strikes, where you strike in sympathy to try to put more pressure on the employer—were declared illegal by the United States as part of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. A union cannot actually legally engage in what would be required to hold a [true] general strike today. They could do it, but they would break the law and face all kinds of penalties for doing so.

Some people were using the term “general strike” to describe Minnesota’s Day of Truth and Freedom in January, and other people were pushing back against that word choice. Is “general strike” the correct term, and how much do definitions matter?

I am one who is a little skeptical about the way this term is being used. I don’t think what happened in Minnesota is a general strike, and I don’t really think what’s going on May 1 qualifies either.

But maybe it doesn’t matter. People are using the terms and the ideas that they have access to through their education and trying to apply them to the presently terrible political situation, and that’s okay. In fact, that’s exactly what people should be doing. Whether or not it is technically a general strike is far less important.

If people can use these terms in order to push for a more just world, then that’s a heck of a lot more important than whether it technically is or is not a general strike.

In 2022, it felt like we were seeing an inflection point in the American labor movement. There were key unionization efforts with companies like Amazon and Starbucks. Do you think that momentum has continued, or has it been really diminished by Trump’s second term?

I think there’s a few things there. One is the anger over economic inequality is very real. I think that hasn’t changed at all. I think we’re seeing that with the increased success of more left-wing candidates in the Democratic Party. Trump may be a liar and a terrible human being, but one of his lies is that he’s good for the working man. A lot of working people believe that because they’re so angry about the system as it exists.

So the economic anger is still very much there. And then every time a union wins something these days, there’s a sort of liberal-left world of writers and readers that want to blow up every single small victory into the revival of the labor movement, and that’s more pressure than it can bear.

We saw this with the Amazon vote, which, let’s face it, was one vote in one factory. We saw this with the Starbucks workers. And we saw this with the successful organizing by the United Auto Workers at that one plant in Chattanooga.

The reality is that the barriers to successfully organizing, in part because of the Taft-Hartley Act, are enormous. The Starbucks workers have done one heck of a job, but what they’re facing is a company that simply refuses to negotiate a contract. The burden to win a union vote and then win a contract is enormous, and if anything, winning that first contract is even harder than winning that first union election, and so companies can wait for years before actually seriously negotiating.

“Labor law is completely captured by corporations, backed by the courts and with the full support of the Republican Party.”

The reality is American labor law is broken. It’s controlled by corporations. President Biden’s idea of the [union-supporting] PRO Act would have tried to reset the playing field on this. But that’s what we need to happen in order to see this kind of energy turn into wins. It really is about political power. The reason that the unions were able to succeed in the 1930s, yes, it was going out on strike and all of the actions they took—but that had happened before.

The difference was massively electing pro-union officials to office, and then those pro-union officials putting the laws into place that create a pathway for those union actions to succeed. You need both the action on the ground, the strike, and you need the electoral side. And we haven’t had that electoral side in many, many decades. And that often has been true under Democrats and is always true under Republicans. So I think the energy is there, and there’s a huge demand for unions. But I don’t think people understand just how hard it is, because labor law is completely captured by corporations, backed by the courts and with the full support of the Republican Party.

I’d like to dive into the Taft-Hartley Act some more. What led to its passage, and how does it shape what’s legally possible when striking today?

First off, the Taft-Hartley Act is one of the worst laws in American history. It continues to severely limit what unions can do today. 1946 is a huge strike year in America. You have all these workers who had struggled through the 1930s and the Great Depression, and even if they’re forming unions, there’s not a lot of money in the economy, so their standard of living is still pretty low.

Then World War II happens, and sure, everybody has a job, but the government’s controlling wages, and we’re not really making consumer goods because everything’s for the war. And so there’s all this massively pent-up demand for increased wages. People want to live a good life, and that’s what a lot of these strikes were about, right? And so it was an enormous strike wave. Over 5 million Americans go on strike in 1946—almost certainly the most in any year in American history.

At the same time, Congress and America generally were moving sharply to the right. We’re seeing the beginnings of Cold War anti-communism, and some unions were led by communists. They were seen now as the enemy, and a lot of employers hated everything that had happened since the unions had started forming in large numbers a decade earlier in the mid-30s and wanted to roll all of that back. So the Taft-Hartley Act bans almost everything that labor unions were able to do to succeed. The sympathy strike is banned. Wildcat strikes—in which you’re under a union contract, but the employer does something bad and you walk out [without a formal strike vote]—are banned.

States were then allowed, through this law, to create the so-called “right to work” laws, in which anti-union states basically incentivize people to not join unions. These have been used in more recent years to try to destroy the labor movement. Taft-Hartley also requires union leaders to pledge they’re not communists, which takes out many of the best-organizing unions in the labor movement [of the time]. It’s a horrible law that continues to have massive impacts on the American labor movement today and goes very far to explain why the movement has become weaker.

It often feels like workers in European countries are engaging in the types of mass strikes we haven’t seen in the US in a long time. Part of it, like you said, is because there’s a lack of the political conditions that that we need to have in the States.

But is there anything else we can learn from other countries that maybe have stronger labor movements?

I think the key is the cultural differences. And this goes back to the mythologies that Americans tell themselves about America: That this is a nation of the individual. This is a nation where you pull yourself up by your bootstraps. This is a nation where the poor man can become rich if he just works hard enough, and all this other bullshit. And you don’t see that in nearly the same kind of way in Europe, in which you have a much more defined system of class consciousness.

Not that European politics are an amazing utopia. But I think it’s always been a challenge in this country to overcome the cultural barriers within the working class that can be this kind of pro-capitalist pathology that lots and lots of people have. And the gig economy, or the rise of Uber, really builds on that—saying, You can make more money by your side hustle.

Racial divisions also absolutely have been a major issue in American labor history. In the past, American workers have often chosen to divide themselves by race. And on top of that, the power of evangelical Protestantism and religion has been a real issue too, in that you have many, many Americans being told messages at churches about individualism, about getting rich, about power structures, about listening to your employer, about obeying. Religion has often been used to crush and bust American strikes as well. So politics is a piece of it, but the biggest difference between here and Europe are cultural issues around class consciousness.

I think a lot of people are looking for strategic actions to take to resist the Trump regime outside of just going to protests and see the general strike as one potential pathway. Given the state of the labor movement, do you think a general strike is the most useful tool to deploy in this moment? Or are there other more strategic pathways?

I think that people want to have one thing that they do and it stops Trump. That’s not going to happen. Everybody’s looking for a shortcut, and I think a lot of general strike rhetoric is a shortcut—if only we come together, we could solve this problem—but I’m not sure that’s really true unless it’s a very real general strike, where the American labor movement leads millions of workers off the job and says they’re going to keep it up for days with clear demands against an anti-worker Republican Party.

Unfortunately, the labor movement is doing nothing. A few unions are even Trump-supportive. The labor movement as an actual organized movement continues to not rise to the occasion. Some state federations have done a pretty good job, but at a national level, it’s been very poor.

So in the absence of that strong labor movement, what do we have?

We have people doing the best they can. And I think that that’s really noble in its own way. We can’t just snap our fingers and stop Donald Trump, and I think this is where learning from other historical movements really makes a difference— thinking about the ways in which people were organizing in the American context in tremendously difficult conditions.

We’re talking about civil rights organizers from the 1920s through the ’50s and ’60s pushing back on Jim Crow. We’re talking about the early organizers in the gay rights movement in the ’70s and ’80s, and the hate and murderous violence that they faced. These are people that we could be inspired by. It might not happen overnight, but we have to understand that struggle happens over the long term, and we have to commit ourselves to that struggle and continue to try to move these conversations forward through our actions, through our organizing.

Whether or not what’s happening on May 1 is a general strike, people using those terms to come together and try to put more pressure on a terrible situation is really a positive thing. And people should take heart from whatever happens out of that and use it as the next moment to continue to build the struggle.

Covert cameras, live-streaming systems, and in-vehicle recording kit sought to catch out fraudsters

The Department for Work and Pensions has gone shopping for covert cameras, live-streaming kit, and vehicle-based recording gear as it lines up a £2 million upgrade to watch fraud suspects in real time.…

Things that go bork in the night

Bork!Bork!Bork!  What frightens you? What, as an IT professional, would make you shriek like a small child? What tech horrors are lurking under your bed?…

Recalling the optimism that surrounded the launch of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program is bewildering, even though it happened just five years ago.

The $5 billion initiative was part of the Biden administration’s goal of having 500,000 public EV charging ports by 2030. Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s transportation secretary, said NEVI would “help us win the EV race.” 

And then things went sideways. First, the Biden administration took a long time to write the program’s rules and had barely started disbursing money by the time President Donald Trump took office. Then, Trump froze the funding and has been defending the decision in court ever since.

It would be reasonable to assume that NEVI hasn’t done much. But a report issued this week by the Sierra Club tells a different story. Despite many obstacles, the program increased its reach and accomplishments in 2025, with states spending $94 million on projects. That’s more than double the $44 million spent in 2024. This translates to hundreds of charging ports, with agreements to deploy thousands more.

And the successes aren’t where you might expect. Pennsylvania and Ohio rank first and second, respectively, in program funding because they were among the first to get organized and apply.

But the spending is still a tiny share of the amount originally set by Congress with the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. More than 95% remains unspent, largely because of legal challenges related to the federal freeze.

“Far more urgency, accountability, and action are needed to deliver the truly nationwide EV charging system Congress promised the American people in 2021,” said Josh Stebbins, managing attorney at Sierra Club, in an email.

Stebbins is part of the legal challenges to the freeze. In one case, Washington v. U.S. Department of Transportation, 17 states and a coalition of environmental advocacy groups successfully argued that the Trump administration broke the law by trying to claw back the money. A Jan. 23 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington agreed with the states and ordered that funding resume.

Advocacy groups are urging states to move aggressively to secure and spend the funds, which requires work to develop project proposals for charging stations.

The 2021 legislation allocated funding to states based on their share of federal highway aid, with the payments spread over five fiscal years starting in 2022.

At the end of 2025, $2.7 billion was available under the terms of the legislation but not yet sent to the states; $1.3 billion was “obligated” under the program, which means states had contracts to spend this money but had not spent it; and $94 million had been spent, according to the report.

The states that spent the most were the ones that moved the fastest to submit proposals from 2022 to 2024. This is why Pennsylvania, with $16.2 million from the program, has received more money than larger states such as California, which got $920,000.

Credit: Rahul Lal for CalMatters

Federal money covers a portion of the costs to deploy public charging stations, with others, often businesses, covering the rest.

After reading the Sierra Club report, I decided to visit the first NEVI-funded project in the United States, which is a short drive from me in the Columbus metro area. It’s at a Pilot Travel Center along I-70 in London, Ohio.

The area around the exit has four large gas stations or truck stops, two of which have EV chargers.

The Pilot Travel Center’s four charging ports looked the same as when I wrote about them in 2023. And just like then, nobody was charging during my visit.

So, I went down the street to TA Travel Center, which had 12 charging ports, and met Chip and Cathy Lillyman of Celina, Ohio, who were relaxing in their Lexus RZ 450e while the battery charged.

High gasoline prices make this a good time to buy an EV, even with the Trump administration’s cancellation of consumer rebates. The price was $4.29 at every station that day, which is pretty close to the local high since the Iran war started in February.

Chip Lillyman, who is a retired auto body shop owner, said high gas prices were one the main reasons they bought an EV. Previous gas price shocks are vivid in his memory, especially the one during the early 1970s Middle East oil embargo.

“I worked at a gas station at that time,” he said.

Cathy (left) and Chip Lillyman of Celina, Ohio, were charging their new Lexus EV this week at the TA Travel Center near London, Ohio.

The Lillymans traded in their Honda CR-V for the Lexus last week, and plan to do most of their charging at home, but were traveling that day.

The TA Travel Center is not listed among those receiving NEVI funding. 

Providing EV charging is one of several ways a convenience store can attract customers, and competition is intense at this exit. But EV market share in Ohio remains low, ranked 28th in the country as of the third quarter of last year, the most recent figure available from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group.

As EV market share grows, convenience stores will need to add chargers. I’m going to keep checking in and see which nearby locations here have chargers, and how much they’re used.

As of March, the country had 170,158 public level 2 charging ports, which are a step up from a garage wall outlet, and 69,630 DC fast-charging ports, according to the federal government’s Joint Office of Energy and Transportation.

Five years earlier, the country had 81,601 level 2 ports and 17,231 DC fast-charging ports. 

But NEVI has had little to do with the growth. The few hundred chargers connected to the program are barely a blip compared to what’s happened in the broader market, with private investment and state and local programs helping to build a national network.

Most of NEVI’s contribution is still coming, which is one reason I think the Biden-era goal of having 500,000 charging ports by 2030 is well within reach — even though the current administration is often hostile to EVs.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

The post The Trump administration tried to stop the national EV charging program. It has kept rolling along anyway. appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Start date pushed back a year, annual cost up a third, and UK's now handing out eight million passports a year

The Home Office has increased the annual value and overall duration of its new passport production contract, increasing it to a total of £576 million as it starts a third round of engagement with suppliers.…

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for its newsletters.

California has emerged as the epicenter of a sweeping hospice fraud crisis, one that is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and putting vulnerable older adults at risk. 

Yet years after the state acknowledged the problem, key regulatory fixes remain in limbo while state and federal officials trade blame. 

Hospice care, an end of life service typically reserved for people with less than six months to live, has become a target for fraudsters looking to steal taxpayer dollars — with devastating consequences for patients caught in the middle. It has also become rich fodder for government and media investigations.

Last week, Sheila Clark, who leads the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association, became emotional as she told congressional leaders the story of a woman in Southern California who in 2020 suffered a devastating fall in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom. The woman, a Medicare recipient, could not see; she needed cataract surgery. But scheduling that surgery ran into a hitch: at the time, Clark said, the woman’s records showed her enrolled in hospice – seemingly fraudulently. Unable to recover from the injuries of her fall, the woman died two months later. “That did not need to happen,” Clark said.

That case and others have refocused attention on a problem that advocates say has never gone away – and is again sparking a partisan fight. At the congressional hearing, some Republicans blamed California and Gov. Gavin Newsom for failing to get a handle on it, while some Democrats blamed the Trump administration for not doing enough and pardoning fraudsters. 

The Newsom administration says it has not been standing idle. Just this month, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced charges against 21 suspects who allegedly defrauded the state of $267 million in a major hospice fraud ring. Since 2021, the office has filed 119 hospice-related criminal cases. The U.S. Attorney’s Office also announced separate recent arrests in California.

The California Department of Health has also revoked 280 hospice licenses over the last two years and is reviewing another 300, according to officials. Meanwhile, state regulations meant to limit who can obtain a hospice license were due months ago.

Stuck in the middle of delays and political back-and-forth are Medicare and Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Californians who truly need end-of-life services may be at risk if they sign up with a sham hospice operator who might provide inadequate care or none at all, while others are enrolled in hospice services even though they are not dying and are locked out of services they need. “People lose access to care, they lose access to medications, to their [doctor], elective surgery,” Clark said. “It’s disheartening.”

Stricter hospice rules are still pending

In 2022, the California State Auditor found that the state’s “weak controls have created the opportunity for large-scale fraud and abuse.” Among other red flags, auditors noted a clustering of hospices in single buildings, particularly in Los Angeles County, and high rates of living patients discharged from hospice. 

The audit found that Los Angeles County saw a 1,500% increase in hospice agencies over a decade, along with indicators of large-scale billing fraud and evidence that thieves stole medical personnel’s identities to obtain licenses.

That same year, the state placed a moratorium on new hospice licenses, which is set to expire next year. Meanwhile, emergency hospice regulations intended to tighten who can obtain a hospice license are again delayed. The state Department of Public Health says it’s revising draft emergency regulations based on feedback from industry representatives and consumer groups. 

“Once these regulations are in place they will include stricter standards for who can own or run a hospice, nurse-to-patient ratios, limits on operators who try to oversee multiple agencies at once, minimum staffing requirements, and more thorough screening of potential licensees before a license can be approved,” said Mark Smith, a department spokesperson. 

Licensing is only the first step – the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services must certify operators before they can start billing. Clark and Isidro say better fraud prevention would demand more transparency and better data sharing between state and federal government.  

Fraud can happen in a number of ways

Psychotherapist Lynn Ianni still does not know how fraudsters got a hold of her information. Two summers ago she was finishing her last physical therapy session for a shoulder injury when Medicare denied her claim: Records showed she was enrolled in hospice care. 

Ianni, who also testified in last week’s hearing, assumed it was a clerical error – she had hurt herself playing pickleball, but led an active healthy life. Medicare pointed her to a hospice in Arcadia where she was supposedly enrolled. The address was in a strip mall; she had never heard of the doctor. She spent hours on the phone, over months, trying to clear up the problem. Medicare refused to cover care for her shoulder even as she paid her premiums. 

“It was over six months that I had no coverage or no services,” Ianni said. “I was really terrified because I couldn’t figure out how to solve it, and I had no resolution in sight.”

Fraud can take different forms. It can be providers knowingly overbilling Medicare and Medi-Cal or submitting false claims — but it can also be elaborate cases in which bad actors create sham agencies, steal medical information and bill for services they never provide or that are not medically necessary. 

These scams sprawl past hospice care. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of Inspector General have also raised concerns over fraud in home health services, skin substitutes, and durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs and walkers or oxygen tanks. Just Tuesday, the feds accused a Pasadena clinic of improperly charging Medicare more than $34 million for skin grafts and wound care services it didn’t provide.

Scammers have many tricks. They make robocalls or approach people at grocery stores, after church, or door-to-door, offering gift cards, meals, or free health services in exchange for forms that ask for personal and medical information.

“They don’t realize that their Medicare number is being stolen, and next thing you know, they’re being entered into hospice,” said Catherina Isidro, director of the California Senior Medicare Patrol, a group that helps people report and navigate Medicare fraud.

Health workers have also filed whistleblower complaints reporting that colleagues share patient information with fraudsters in exchange for kickbacks, Isidro said. That kind of fraud is harder to guard against because medical providers are supposed to be people of trust.

Clark said fraudsters have made a business of stealing Medicare identification numbers from the dark web and then selling them to hospices or home health agencies. “They literally call themselves brokers,” Clark said. “‘Here’s 10 beneficiary numbers. How much will you give me every month that you’re able to bill?’” 

Safeguarding your medical information is key

Families who truly need hospice care should not shy away from seeking the benefit over fear of fraud, said Mollie Gurian, vice president of government affairs at Leading Age, a group that represents providers of aging services. People can use the Medicare Care Compare site’s quality scores and phone directory to start looking for legitimate hospice providers. Legitimate providers should pick up the phone and be able to answer questions about their services, Gurian said. 

“[Hospice] is a great benefit, and the fact that it’s been utilized to commit fraud in this way is very distressing.”

For everyone else, advocates advise guarding Medicare and Medicaid identification numbers like a Social Security number – never sharing the number over the phone or in exchange for freebies. People should also read Medicare summary notices and explanation of benefits documents to ensure everything looks accurate. 

“It’s really critical that older adults, you know, Medicare beneficiaries, their caregivers or their family members, whoever is taking care of them, that they be very vigilant,” Isidro said. 

Those who suspect fraud should call their state’s Senior Medicare Patrol, a federally funded helpline that can help people disenroll from services they did not request, often within a day or two.

That hotline helped clear up Ianni’s Medicare account and restarted her benefits. Six months after first learning she was fraudulently enrolled in hospice, Ianni got a new Medicare card in the mail, with no explanation for what had happened. Just in time, too, she said: two weeks later, she broke a finger. “I was so relieved.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

The post Sham hospice schemes are bilking Medicare — and harming older Californians appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Medical license applicants still waiting months while agency insists it's 'putting things right'

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has introduced new techto support driving license applications that require medical checks, after processing times exceeded 14 weeks in February.…

For once, Oracle ERP wasn’t the problem

On Call  Fridays can be a drag, but The Register has a formula to inject a little fun by delivering a new instalment of On Call – the reader-contributed column in which we share your tech support stories.…

Enters the custom AI silicon business with secret silicon for an un-named hyperscaler

Qualcomm has quietly entered the market for custom hyperscale silicon, and datacenter CPUs…

In talks with Japan, the UK, and Australia on defense tech that can ‘contribute to global stability’

Japanese tech giant Fujitsu has confirmed the demise of its mainframe business in the year 2035 and hinted it’s working on significant defense projects.…

Source: Watsonville Police Department

April 24

• Someone stole a vehicle parked on the 100 block of Menker Street at about 6am.

• An unknown suspect kicked in the door of a residence on the 100 block of Rio Del Pajaro Court at about 7:30pm. No suspect was located. 

April 25

• Officers responded to a shoplifting report at a business on the 1400 block of Main Street at 8:18am. Police searched the area, but no suspects were found.

• A 49-year-old man was arrested for brandishing a knife at multiple victims on the 100 block of Marchant Street at 6:59pm. He was taken to Santa Cruz County Jail.

• Police responded to a report of a shoplifter who had just left a business on the 1400 block of Main Street. A 51-year-old man was arrested and taken to Santa Cruz County Jail.

• A victim reported being assaulted by two suspects with sticks on the 200 block of Pennsylvania Avenue at 2am on April 19. The suspects fled in a gray Camaro.

April 26

• Watsonville Police reported an attempted burglary at Cal Giant on the 100 block of Sakata Lane. Surveillance video showed a man attempting to break into the business around 5:30am. He was unidentifiable in the video.

• A father reported that his 35-year-old son was causing a disturbance at his residence on the 600 block of Delta Way. The son was under a restraining order, and remains at large.

April 27

• A 65-year-old man was arrested for public intoxication after he was seen urinating in front of a residence on the 900 block of Freedom Boulevard.

April 28

• Unknown suspects tried unsuccessfully to break into a business on the 400 block of Main Street at about 4am. The suspects have not been identified, but video surveillance is available.

• A 44-year-old man was arrested for shoplifting and trespassing from a business on the 1400 block of Main Street at 1:50pm.

April 29

• A man disappeared like smoke after he stole two packs of cigarettes from the Chevron gas station on the 1900 block of Freedom Boulevard at 9:44pm. The suspect is still at large.

The Watsonville Police Department last week welcomed its newest officer.

Beau Baugher began during his time as a Watsonville Police Cadet in 2011, where he first developed a strong connection to serving the community.

Before joining, he worked as a paramedic with American Medical Response and later served as a Deputy with the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office.

$227k gets you a hearing for your dot.vanity project, or strings in one of 27 scripts

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on Thursday kicked off a new application process for generic top-level domains (gTLDs), its first since 2012.…

Users in India are embracing ChatGPT Images 2.0 for creative, personal visuals — from avatars to cinematic portraits.

The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais has been as quick as it was inevitable. Justice Samuel Alito’s reprehensible 6-3 decision functionally killed the tiny bits of the Voting Rights Act that we were clinging to in the face of Chief Justice John Roberts’ decades-long crusade to end the VRA. Louisiana wasted no time taking a victory lap, with Gov.

Source

A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know. How Democrats plan to fight the Supreme Court’s racist ruling “It is clearly carrying out Donald Trump’s will with this decision.” Hispanic voters are saying adios to the GOP No amount of rebranding can save them now. Trump takes aim at key gun-safety measures…

Source

Cook warned that Apple is facing supply chain headwinds from RAMaggedon that could impact its business.

Consider supporting my work so I can continue creating it: Substack: https://nickanderson.substack.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/editorialcartoons Ko-Fi: https://www.patreon.com/c/editorialcartoonsCartoon Related | Trump wants revenge on Comey, no matter the cost to the GOP…

Source

Subscription billing fintech Skio sold to its competitor Recharge in what was a healthy exit, according to its founder and former CEO.