Hands to Help Seniors

Monterey, CA  IRS Employees Target Tea Party Non-Profits For Investigation : Part II :  View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California I wrote recently on my blog that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted last Friday that they improperly targeted conservative political groups during the 2012 presidential election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.  The investigation continues and it's now been revealed that this was done by a rogue group of employees in the Cincinnati, Ohio office which also targeted non-profits which sought to education Americans about the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as groups that criticized the government.  The Washington Post did an investigation with the help of a congressional aide which found that the Cincinnati field office was making high-level decisions about non-profits because about a decade ago the IRS delegated decision making on new non-profits to this unit.  At the same time, the IRS eliminated a review that used to happen in the Washington D.C. office after a non-profit status was approved or rejected.  Clearly, there is something wrong with this process.  I agree with Senator Susan Collins (Republican, Maine) who told a reporter that the practice was "absolutely chilling."  White House spokesman Jay Carney said the matter needs to be investigated.  "The President needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America."  I hope that there's not only an investigation of the rogue field office but also a house cleaning.  It's so difficult to get a non-profit status and it is really unbelievable that a handful of people could be making decisions on their own which are not in synch with the policies of the IRS.

Please note that this blog reflects my personal opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of Hands to Help Seniors and the individual members comprising the Board of Governors.

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Monterey, CA  IRS Employees Target Tea Party Non-Profits For Investigation :  View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted on Friday that they improperly targeted conservative political groups during the 2012 presidential election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.  Shame on them.  Regardless of your political views, it is a long and arduous process to get your non-profit status and tax-exempt organizations should not be the target of politically motivated investigations.  In 2012, IRS agents started auditing groups which had "tea party" or "patriot" in their IRS applications, and in some cases the non-profits were asked for a list of donors, which is against IRS policies.  The practice does not seem to be linked to the Obama administration but rather was done by a group of rogue employees at the IRS.  In fact, the IRS is currently led by a Bush administration appointee.  The Treasury Department's inspector general is going to look into the matter and I am sure that heads will roll.  "This was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and inappropriate.  That's not how we go about selecting cases for review," Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS group which is in charge of overseeing non-profits, told the American Bar Association.  I agree, and I hope that she gets to the bottom of this quickly.  It reflects poorly on the IRS and of course people will be pointing fingers at the Obama administration even if they had nothing to do with it.

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View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California Health care costs are a huge worry for seniors and the disabled.  Co-payments for many procedures and prescriptions have been rising.  If you are unfortunate to get cancer, some of the experimental drugs can be exorbitant.  Two new economic analyses found that health care spending growth rates are slowing, but at 3.9% it's still much higher than inflation and more than double the increase that was given to Social Security recipients last year.  This has caused some to worry that the spending slowdown is due in part to some seniors and low-income Americans simply not going to the doctor or picking up their prescriptions because they can't afford it.  Economists are now studying the data and trying to determine if the slowing growth (t was actually in the double digits for much of the 1980's and early 1990's) could be due to recent health care reforms and be a trend, or whether this is a short-term blip on the radar screen.  With health care spending now a whopping 17.9% of our nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), I hope the decline is a trend.  However, I do speak to many seniors who have curtailed medical spending during and after the recession, a sad situation.

Please note that this blog reflects my personal opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of Hands to Help Seniors and the individual members comprising the Board of Governors.

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View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California President Barack Obama is looking in every nook and cranny of the budget to try and cut costs and the latest is public housing.  He reportedly has plans to allow the housing authority to set time limits or work requirements for those using public housing.  I agree that if someone is able-bodied and doesn't want to work but instead wants to rely on public assistance, they should be put to work.  Our nation is just too far in debt to support people that don't have the initiative to go out and get a job.  There are long waits to get into public housing and the new rules could open up units for those that really need it.  Many of those on the waiting list are seniors and the disabled, and they desperately need the housing.  The new rules are similar to welfare, which now has a five year limit.  Public housing benefits, on the other hand, can last a lifetime.  Only about 1% of the nation's housing authorities currently have the authority to limit the time one stays in public housing and the ones which don't are lobbying for the new rules.  They believe the current system doesn't motivate residents to become financially independent and it's not fair to those who need assistance but currently have to wait years to get it.  These seniors and disabled adults need the housing, let's give it to them.  Roughly half of those in public housing are seniors and the disabled, a sad statistic.

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View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California Anyone who has ever been in a hospital knows that the pricing is absolutely outrageous.  If you are uninsured or have insurance that doesn't pay the whole bill, a hospital stay can be financially devastating.  President Barack Obama's health care reform (the Affordable Care Act) is working to change that.  I was also happy to see that new rules released on Wednesday by the federal government are going to require hospitals to disclose exactly how much everything costs prior to the patient being admitted.  This comes on the heels of a report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services which found enormous price differentials on 100 common medical procedures amongst different hospitals.  The report found that, in some instances, one hospital located near another one would charge double or more for the exact same procedure.  The government believes that forcing pricing disclosure will drive down costs, and I agree.  Many employers limit which hospitals employees can go, choosing the one with the highest quality and the lowest cost.  There's no reason one procedure should cost double what another nearby hospital charges, regardless of whether insurance is paying for it.  It's the uninsured who get priced gouged.  The American Hospital Association released a statement that the report doesn't take into account the $41 billion in financial aid that hospitals gave to the uninsured and the underinsured in 2011.  But not everyone gets this assistance, and I don't see how this relates to some hospitals significantly overcharging patients. 

Please note that this blog reflects my personal opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of Hands to Help Seniors and the individual members comprising the Board of Governors.

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