Category: Denise Huijuan Jia
Proposed New College Student Database Raises Privacy Concerns
By Huijuan Jia
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 -Federal officials are considering creating a national database containing detailed information about students including financial data, a move advocates say would facilitate tracking performance of colleges but critics argue would constitute an invasion of the students’ privacy.
The National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the Department of Education responsible for gathering and processing data, is studying the feasibility of a proposed redesign of its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, which currently requires that colleges report student data in summary form. The proposal calls for creating a new “unit record” system in which schools would provide the information on a student-by-student basis instead of in a broad summary.
The current system collects survey data from all post-secondary schools that receive federal financial assistance. Student data currently collected by the Web-based system include enrollments, completions, graduation rates, tuition and student financial aid. Much of this data is aggregated by several student characteristics.
Under the proposed change, the department would use Social Security numbers to match each student’s data in different portions of the database. In addition to the information currently collected, the new system would include data on tuition and fees paid, loans and federal, state and institutional grant awards for each student enrolled in the school.
Proponents of the proposal, including the American Council on Education, the
American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the State Higher
Education Executive Officers Association, argue that the present system is unable to provide an accurate portrayal of how well colleges educate students in a number of measures, including, for example, graduation rates.
Advocates also argue that the new system would help to more accurately measure a college’s performance by providing better information on the graduation rate, and for the first time, track an institution’s net price, or what students actually pay after financial aid.
Critics, however, particularly lobbyists for private colleges, have expressed concerns that such a new system would invade a student’s privacy and could also expose students to identity theft.
The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents private colleges, strongly opposes the proposal. Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations of the association, said “there is a Big Brother aspect of all of this.”
“We do not believe that the price for enrolling in college should be permanent entry into a federal registry, and we fear that the existence of such a massive registry will prove irresistible to future demands for access to the data for non-educational purposes,” the association stated in an issue brief on its Website, “The idea that students would enter a federal registry by enrolling in college and could be tracked for the rest of their lives is frightening. A central database containing massive amounts of data for each of the 16.5 million post-secondary students in the United States, including those who do not receive any federal financial aid, is chilling.”
With identity theft on the rise and colleges moving away from the use of Social Security numbers, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities called the proposed system “a step backward for privacy rights.”
Jeff von Munkwitz-Smith, university registrar at the University of Connecticut, said he supports the goal of providing better information on graduation rates, time to completion, student migration and the real cost of attendance but believes the proposal would “unnecessarily increase” the burden on institutions.
“As with most proposals, the devil is in the details,” he said, “Decisions about the data elements to be collected, data element definitions and the timing of the submissions will make a huge difference in the burden on institutions. Keeping the process as clean and simple as possible would benefit all of us.”
One of the purposes of the new system would be verify enrollment for loans through the National Student Loan Data System. But Munkwitz-Smith said that institutions already have the ability to provide such verifications.
“If the purpose of the change to unit record data collection is to be able to answer the questions that Congress, institutions and the public have about graduation rates, etc.,” he said in an e-mail response. “Why needlessly complicate the change by attempting to solve a problem that institutions already have solved?”
Congress will start early next year to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, which sets the rules for higher education-related grants and expired at the end of September. Advocates of the new system would like Congress to include a field test in approximately 1,200 to 1,500 institutions in 2006-2007, and nationwide implementation in 2007-2008, according to Dennis Carroll, associate commissioner of the postsecondary studies division at the National Center for Education Statistics.
In late October and early November, the center sponsored three conferences, called “technical review panels,” to discuss converting the current data collection system. At the November 9-10 meeting, the center’s commissioner, Robert Lerner, reiterated that the agency would take no action unless Congress authorizes the proposal and appropriates funds for its implementation.
Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, and other advocates of the proposal have been urging Congress to consider establishing the unit record system as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Hartle warned at the meeting that there would be dangers to the higher education community if the new system is not revised, but he doubted it could be done quickly and easily. He called the timetable “breathtakingly optimistic,” citing privacy and technical issues as stumbling blocks to moving forward.
Bernard Fryshman, executive vice president of the Association of Advanced Rabbinical and Talmudic Schools, called the database a “total invasion of privacy of individuals and a major change.”
“It isn’t anybody’s business where I’ve gone or what I’ve done,” Fryshman said. “Nobody should record these data, no matter how well protected.”
Carroll assured that no one outside of the National Center for Education Statistics and its contractors would have access to the database.
“Records go in, but never go out,” Carroll said.
But some education experts, including Becky Timmons, the American Council on Education’s director of government relations, worried that other agencies might want access to the database once it is built.
At an earlier meeting in November, panelists expressed their concerns about using Social Security numbers as the tracking device in the data. Peggye Cohen, assistant vice president of George Washington University, said that students there are “up in arms” over the use of Social Security numbers and that the school is involved in a big project to stop using them in order to help cut down on identity theft.
Enacting the proposal also would require changing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which requires a student’s or parent’s permission to release most student records.
As part of the design of the unit record system, once it is authorized and appropriated, the National Center for Education Statistics said it would hold more panel meetings to discuss the issue of student privacy and rights. A report on the proposal is currently being prepared and is expected to be submitted to Congress in February.
The Department of Education has not released cost figures for implementing such a system, but higher education lobbyists estimate the project to initially require $4 million-$6 million.
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Erin Brockovich-Ellis: A Warrior, A Mom, A Woman
By Huijuan Jia
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2004-"If anything I could think of can go behind my name, it's going to be: Erin Brockovich, 36 DD."
Erin Brockovich-Ellis, who became world-famous practically overnight through a hit movie named after her, was describing her title to hundreds of public health professionals, most with Ph.D.s or M.D.s after their names, at a conference in Washington's Convention Center.
The audience laughed. She waited for nearly a minute for the laughter to quiet down. With short blonde hair, a red, deep, v-neck, slim-fitting sweater, an ivory multiple stone-chained necklace with an egg-sized pendant, a black knee-length waist-belted leather coat and black high-heeled boots, Brockovich-Ellis, now 44, is no longer the sassy and flashy law firm clerk featured in the movie. But she still looks sexy and cool.
And she is definitely not short of titles behind her name. No longer a file clerk, she now serves as director of research at Masry & Vititoe, the law firm featured in the movie, where she famously brought a lawsuit against the utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric Company and won a $333 million settlement for more than 600 residents in Hinkley, Calif.
The 2000 movie, which starred Julia Roberts, not only won the actress an Oscar award, but also made Brockovich-Ellis a public figure and won her numerous awards and titles including "Presidential Award of Merit" from the Consumer Attorneys of California, "Special Citizen Award" from the Children's Health Environmental Coalition, "Lifesaver Award" from the Lymphoma Research Foundation of America, "Woman of the Year" from the Israel Cancer Research Fund and the "Environmental Excellence" award from the National Jewish Fund.
Brockovich-Ellis never expected these honors. "I have always been the underdog," she said, adding that in school she was once voted "the girl least likely to succeed."
A native of Lawrence, Kan., Erin is the youngest of four children in her family. Her father was an industrial engineer and her mother was a journalist. After graduating from Lawrence High School in 1978, Erin spent one year at Kansas State University, and then transferred to Miss Wade's Fashion Merchandising College in Dallas, Texas, where she earned an associate degree.
She had worked for K-Mart and an engineering company in California for a few months. While at the latter job, she attended a beauty pageant and won the title of Miss Pacific Coast. (The movie called it Miss Wichita as director Steven Soderbergh thought "it would be cute" since she was from Kansas.)
The next year she married restaurant manager Shawn Brown, with whom she had two children, Matthew and Katie, and the family moved to Reno, Nev. Erin and Brown divorced in 1987. While working at a Reno brokerage as a secretary, she met her second husband, stockbroker Steven Brockovich, whom she married in 1989. Not long after she had her third child, Elizabeth, her second marriage ended in 1990.
After being seriously injured in a traffic accident in Reno, she moved back to Southern California with her children. She hired Jim Vititoe of Masry & Vititoe to handle her car accident case, but when the $17,000 settlement she received couldn't cover all her debts, she begged the firm to hire her as a $1,200 a month clerk. While organizing papers in a pro bono real estate case, she found medical records in the file that piqued her curiosity. She began to research the matter.
Her investigation eventually found that Hinkley's residents had been exposed to Chromium 6, a toxic chemical leaked into the groundwater from the nearby Pacific Gas and Electric Company's compressor station. In 1996, as a result of the largest direct action lawsuit of its kind, the giant utility paid the largest toxic tort injury settlement in U.S. history: $333 million in damages to more than 600 Hinkley residents.
As in the movie, Erin Brockovich was rewarded with a $2 million bonus from the law firm and promoted to her current position.
Her biker boyfriend George in the movie was a real person but in real life things did not work out between Erin a nd George. Remarried in 1999 to actor Eric Ellis, she now lives in Agoura Hills, Calif., with her husband and children.
The movie brought Brockovich both fame and attacks. Journalist and attorney Michael Fumento published a series of articles in newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, blasting Brockovich and her law firm as acting "like fat rats by exploiting both the system and their clients." He argued that there is no significant evidence to prove that Chromium-6 was the cause of the disease suffered by Hinkley residents.
"Often times I see headlines: Erin Brockovich and her junk science. Oh, shut up," Brockovich-Ellis said.
"First of all, it is not my science. We work with world renowned experts," she said. She doesn't need a Ph.D. to know what is harming people's health, she said, adding all she requires is "common sense."
"We didn't expect the money. We didn't expect the movie. We didn't expect Julia Roberts," she said, "We simply cared. We chose to do the right thing for the right reason."
Brockovich-Ellis said she is not a politician, not an attorney, not a scientist. "I'm an ordinary person who isn't afraid to speak out not only what's in my mind, but to speak what's in my heart," she said.
While the movie portrays her as a warrior against a giant company in the name of justice, she said it is not her favorite film. "My favorite movie is 'Pay it Forward'," she said.
"Pay It Forward" tells the fictional story of 12-year-old Trevor McKinney, who comes home from school with an extra-credit assignment for his Social Studies class: Think of an idea for world change and put it into action. Trevor's idea was "paying it forward," where one does another a favor and then requests that a favor be paid forward to three more people. This is what Erin Brockovich-Ellis said she hopes she can do.
She attributed her persistence in finding the truth to her father, calling him "a very strong, committed and firm father." She said one thing she learned from him is honesty and she "learned it in a hard way."
While in high school, Erin once skipped school for a day. "I got caught and I told him a lie," she recalled. As a punishment, she was grounded for the whole semester and was not allowed to make phone calls or date. He even took away a planned trip to Chicago.
"I was furious," she said.
Her father wrote her a letter when he went out of town, she said. He told her there would be many trips in the future and most of them would be more fun than the one to Chicago. He told her to accept the punishment as an adult. "Remember your mom and I love you very much, and we expect you to develop into an honest and respected woman," her father wrote.
Now Erin Brockovich-Ellis, whom others predicted would be an "underachiever," has matched her parents' expectations. And she now has a family of her own: Her eldest son Matthew is 21, Katie 20, and Elizabeth 13. She said none of her children pays any attention to the movie.
"No 'Erin Brockovich' at home. I am Mom," she said.
Connecticut Ranked as One of the Best States for Women
By Huijuan Jia
WASHINGTON, Nov.17, 2004-Connecticut is ranked as one of the best states in the country for women in terms of economic, social and health status and political participation, according to a study released Tuesday.
The report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research rates Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota and Washington as the four states best for women. The worst states are Mississippi, South Carolina and Kentucky.
Connecticut has been ranked among the best states for women four times in a row since 1998 by the non-profit research organization's biennial study, " The Status of Women in the States ."
"The report tells us that we have come a long way-some of us more than others," Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D-3rd) said Tuesday in a news conference releasing the report. "I'm particularly proud to come from a state that gets high marks in the report and has been consistently getting high marks."
In the category of women's political participation and representation, Connecticut ranked high, with its governor and two of its five House members being women.
Connecticut also has three other women in elected state offices, including one African-American, state treasurer Denise Nappier. Only five statewide elected executive offices in the country are held by women of color. In state legislatures, Connecticut has 55 women, including four African-Americans and three Hispanic women, which makes the state third in the country in terms of women's political participation.
According to the report, women hold less than 15 percent of the seats in Congress. The number of women of color in Congress decreased from a high of 21 in 2002 to 19 after the recent election. There are seven Hispanic women and 12 African American women in the next House. No women of color currently serve in the Senate. There is no Asian American woman or Native American woman in Congress, and no woman of color has ever served as governor of any state.
"At this rate, it will be nearly a century before women take an equal share of the seats in Congress," said Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
But Rep. DeLauro said this is not about numbers, but about "agenda." She said women's under-representation in Congress has "stymied and stifled" issues that are in the best interests of women. She said a bill on equal pay for women she introduced in three consecutive Congresses couldn't even get a hearing.
"I will guarantee you that if we could get a hearing and get it out of the committee process to the floor of the House, I dare anyone to vote against pay equity for women in this nation," DeLauro said.
She called for more women being elected to Congress so that issues important to women would "get approached, get fixed, get dealt with and get action on."
"An agenda for women is based on principle and goes to the heart of what women believe-that government must play a role in making opportunity real," DeLauro said. "As we look toward the upcoming Congress, this report provides an opportunity to open a dialogue that might impact public policy for women in the coming months."
Among its findings, the report also concluded that after decades of progress, women are still decades away from achieving full economic equality with men. American women are paid 76 cents for every dollar men earn, the report said. The wage gap is even wider for African-American, Hispanic and Asian women.
"Things are better in some places and worse in others, but wherever you go in America, women are short-changed, starting with their paychecks," Hartmann said.
The report calculated that if the rate of change remains the same as it has been since 1989 it would take 50 years before women's paychecks to equal men's and it would take African-American women 75 years and Asian-American women 135 years.
The report found that one out of every eight American women lives in poverty. Nearly one out of four African-American women lives in poverty and one-fourth of all Native American women live in poverty.
"Life is getting worse, not better, for women near the bottom of the American economy," Hartmann said.
There are signs of improvement, however. For example, the number of women governors jumped from one to nine from 1996 to 2004. The wage gap between women and men narrowed in every state. However, the progress in uneven, which is reflected in that the list of the best and the worst states for women hasn't changed much.
Mississippi has been the worst state since 1998 and each of the other worst states this year has been there at least once before. "This lack of status change is very frustrating," said Amy Caiazza, study director at the organization and one of the report's editors. "Overall our report shows some progress, but we are very disappointed that more hasn't happened."
Caiazza called for better enforcement of equal opportunity and affirmative-action laws, the election of more women to public office and an increase in the federal minimum wage.
She blamed the slow improvement of women's status partly on policymakers' failure to give priority to women's issues. She called for candidates and policymakers to recognize the issues and take actions to quicken improvement in women's status.
"This will benefit not only women, their families, but communities, the states and the nation as a whole," Caiazza said.
Insurers Eye on Congress Action on Terrorism Insurance Law Extension
By Huijuan Jia
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2004-A bill renewing a law that provides federal assistance to insurance companies that cover damage from terrorism was approved by a House committee Wednesday.
This was encouraging news for commercial property insurers, like The Hartford Financial Services Group, who rely on the federal government's commitment to share the majority of losses caused by terrorism attacks.
"We are pleased by the House committee's action," said Cynthia Michener, spokeswoman of the Hartford-based insurance company. She said Harford is waiting for congressional action before making a decision on whether to include terrorism coverage in new policies next year. She said the company hopes Congress will pass the bill before the election.
Michener said that if the law is not extended, the company has to decide whether it would be able to underwrite terrorism coverage without federal protection.
The bill, known as the Terrorism Insurance Extension Backstop Act of 2004, was approved on a voice vote Wednesday by the House Committee on Financial Services. The legislation would grant a two-year extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act 2002, which will expire by the end of 2005.
The current terrorism insurance law took effect in November 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It enables commercial insurers to provide affordable terrorism coverage to policyholders. The act establishes a program with the Treasury Department, under which the federal government shares the risk of loss from future foreign terrorist attacks.
If a terrorist attack causes a policyholder a loss in excess of $5 million, the insurance company would pay a basic deductible above which the government would cover 90 percent of the remaining costs.
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), a member of the committee and co-sponsor of the bill, said that extension of the law would guarantee the availability of terrorism insurance coverage for businesses.
"After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, many businesses were no longer able to purchase insurance to protect against property losses that might occur in any future terrorist attacks," Shays said in a written statement, "I support the legislation because it created a temporary program to share future insured terrorism losses with the property-casualty insurance industry and policyholders."
The insurance industry wants action on the bill so companies can begin negotiations on new insurance policies and contracts. Annual policies for coverage starting in the new year are considered and negotiated starting in September. The policy period for such annual insurance contracts would run beyond the expiration date of the 2002 law. As a result, part of the coverage term would be in effect without the protections of the federal assistance.
"This calendar mismatch could create adverse financial consequences for commercial policyholders, insurers and the U.S. economy," said Leigh Ann Pusey, the American Insurance Association's senior vice president on government affairs. "Because commercial insurance policies taking effect in the early months of 2005 are being negotiated this fall, those financial consequences would be felt very soon if the law is not extended this year."
Advocates for extension of the law are also waiting for the Senate's action on a similar bill introduced by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.).
"This law is working as it was intended: to provide some measure of insurance for American workers and American companies against the risk of terrorism," Sen. Dodd said. "It needs and deserves to be extended. I look forward to working with members of the Banking Committee to accomplish this goal."
But a spokesman for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) said the terror insurance program is not set for action by that panel.
"In the near term nothing's scheduled, but it's certainly something we're going to look at closely through the hearing process," Shelby spokesman Andrew Gray said.
After the House approval, the insurance association urged the Senate to act. "Time is running short, and there is still much work to be done before this bill can be signed into law," Pusey said.
According to a recently released study, U.S. businesses are buying more terrorism insurance amid international tensions.
Marsh Inc., a New York-based risk and insurance services firm, said in a report that almost half of its clients are buying property terrorism insurance in the second quarter of 2004, more than double from the same period last year.
Opponents of the bill said that insurance industry is deceiving Congress about need to extend terrorism insurance law, arguing that renewal of the law could cost taxpayers billions that industry could afford to pay and stifle the development of a private market for terrorism insurance. They argue that the Congress should not act on the issue until the Treasury Department finishes a study, due next June, it is conducting on the subject.
J. Robert Hunter, the Consumer Federation of America's director of insurance and a former Chief Actuary of the Federal Insurance Administration, said in a press release that the insurance industry is trying to "hoodwink" Congress into extending the law before the Treasury Department completes its report showing that the law is "no longer necessary."
In April, the federation released a review of the current law concluding that it would not be necessary after 2005. The ability of the private market to insure against terrorism is "enormous and growing," insurer profits are "very substantial" and the financial condition of these companies overall is "rock solid," the report said.
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Banks Donate Big Money to Gregg
By Huijuan Jia
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27, 2004-Big banks have helped Sen. Judd Gregg (R) raise big money in his campaign for reelection next month, but a bill introduced by the senator and passed by Congress in early October would cost those bankers millions of dollars.
Filings with the Federal Election Commission show that as of Oct. 13, Gregg had raised $2.95 million and had $1.78 million in the bank.
More than half of the money raised was from political action committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that analyzes campaign finance data. The financial industry was the second-largest contributor to Gregg's campaign with nearly $320,000, only slightly shy of the contributions from health care industry PACs, according to the center.
Political action committees are organized by business, labor and ideological interest groups to raise and spend money to support candidates.
With $1.78 million cash on hand, Gregg shot well ahead of his Democratic challenger, Doris R. Haddock, who had $7,879 on hand and had raised $173,726 as of Oct. 13. Haddock's contributions were entirely from individuals.
In the 2003-04 election cycle, commercial bank PACs donated $59,800 to Gregg, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Among the top donors, Citigroup Inc.'s PAC and American Bankers Association's PAC each gave the senator $10,000, the maximum contribution a PAC can give to a candidate per election cycle under the federal campaign finance law. Bank of America's PAC donated $8,000 to Gregg.
Individual employees from these banks also donated money in their own name to Gregg. Under federal election law, an individual contribution is capped at $2,000 for each election or primary. Individual donations to Gregg include $1,000 from the president of Miami-based U.S. Education Finance Corp., $2,000 from the president of Education Finance Council, a trade association representing student loan companies throughout the country, $4,000 from the president of Student Loan Consolidation Center, a student loan company in California, and $1,500 from the president of Citigroup's Student Loan Corp.
Finance industry PACs have been the largest contributors to Gregg since he was elected senator in 1992. According to Political Money Line, a non-partisan campaign-finance tracking service, when Gregg first ran for the Senate in 1992, he received about $91,000 from finance industry PACs, accounting for 7.5 percent of his total funds raised.
In 1998 when he was reelected, Gregg raised $133,625, or more than 11 percent of all his funds, from finance industry PACs. This year's finance industry PAC contributions of $320,000 also represent about 11 percent of the total funds Gregg has raised.
Gregg is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and sits on the Appropriations and Budget Committees. A recent Gregg bill would have a direct impact on banks with student loan business.
The Taxpayer-Teacher Protection Act of 2004 would end the federal guarantee of a 9.5 percent rate of return to student loan lenders and use the money saved to support teachers and poor schools. The bill was sent to the White House Oct. 21 but has not been signed by President Bush.
"The government is spending millions unnecessarily because some lenders are exploiting loopholes in the federal higher education laws," Gregg said in a statement when the bill was introduced.
To encourage lenders to make student loans under the Federal Family Education Loan program, the federal government guarantees lenders a 9.5 percent rate of return. Although students pay less than 3.4 percent interest on their loans, the government pays lenders the difference.
As a result of the lower interest rates, the amount the government paid to student loan companies more than tripled from 2001 through June 2004, from $209 million to $634 million, according to a report released Sept. 20 by the Government Accountability Office.
Under the bill, the fixed 9.5 percent interest rate would be replaced with an adjustable rate reflecting market rates. The one-year fix is expected to save the government $285 million. The temporary solution is supposed to pave the way for a permanent fix during the next Congress.
"We are putting the lending community on notice," Gregg said when the bill was introduced. "This loophole will be closed permanently next year when Congress re-authorizes the Higher Education Act, and those savings will be used to improve student benefits."
Bridgeport Community Health Center Gets $290,000 Federal Grant
By Huijuan Jia
WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 2004- The Bridgeport Community Health Center last week was awarded a $290,000 federal grant as part of a national program to help communities across the country provide comprehensive health care for low-income and uninsured Americans.
The center's chief executive officer, Ludwig Spinelli, called the federal grant "a perfect fit to address the health needs of homeless persons."
By combining aggressive street outreach with an integrated system of primary care-which includes mental health and substance abuse counseling, client advocacy and referrals for oral care-services are made available at no charge at locations accessible to the homeless population, Spinelli said in a press release.
The center, founded in 1976, is one of only two community health centers servicing the Bridgeport. It provides health care to about 27,000 people at six sites in Fairfield County, serving a medically underserved target area.
"We are working to double the number of community-based healthcare clinics across the nation, providing 20 million uninsured Americans with health care," Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said in a press release Wednesday, "I am grateful that Bridgeport, my hometown, will be a beneficiary of that expansion."
The grant is part of a five-year U.S. Department of Health and Human Services plan launched in 2002 to add 1,200 new and expanded community health center sites nationwide and increase the number of people served annually from 10 million to 16 million by 2006. The program has funded nearly 700 new or expanded health centers. Almost 40 percent of the patients treated at these health centers have no insurance coverage, and others have inadequate coverage, according to the department.
The grants, totaling $49 million, will help 76 health centers provide services to an estimated 488,000 Americans, including many without health insurance. The grants will be made in December contingent upon the availability of fiscal year 2005 funds.
"Nearly half a million Americans, who otherwise would have gone without health care, will soon have access to health care services in their community," HHS Secretary Tommy G.. Thompson said in a press release, "These grants are all about bringing health care to the people who need it most, in the areas where it's needed most."
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Avis Goodwin Community Health Center Gets $375,000 Federal Grant
By Huijuan Jia
WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 2004-Avis Goodwin Community Health Center in Dover and Rochester last week was awarded a $375,000 federal grant as part of a national program to help communities across the country provide comprehensive health care for low-income and uninsured Americans.
"This is a significant achievement for the entire organization and assists in ensuring that we will continue to provide quality health care for a diverse population in our community for a long time to come," the center's chief executive officer, Frank Ramirez, said in a press release.
This is the first time in the health center's 32-year history that it will receive federal funding, Ramirez said. Avis Goodwin is the only agency to be awarded the grant out of eight competing community health centers in New Hampshire and Vermont.
The center, founded in 1971 and first known as The Clinic, changed its name in 1996 to honor its founders. The Dover facility provides primary health care services and in August a dental care facility opened in Rochester
The grant provides $225,000 for expansion of the center's services to serve additional patients. The remaining $150,000 is to be applied toward a capital campaign fund designated for the construction of a new consolidated facility, according to the press release.
Ramirez said the center has just started a fundraising campaign for the new facility, which will be in Somersworth. The campaign is expected to raise more than $1 million, mainly from businesses and organizations. By the time of its completion, expected in two or three years, the 25,000-square-foot new health center will consolidate the Dover and Rochester facilities to provide both primary and dental services.
As a federally qualified health center, Avis Goodwin also will be eligible for other federal grants to help enhance existing services and to develop new services, the press release said.
The grant will enable Avis Goodwin, which annually serves more than 6,000 users who visit the centers 25,000 times a year, to bring in 1,700 new patients each year and to serve about 11,000 people by 2006 or 2007, Ramirez said.
Half of the persons using the facilities do not have medical insurance coverage, he said. There are 14,000 uninsured people in Strafford County, according to Ramirez.
The grant is part of a five-year U.S. Department of Health and Human Services plan launched in 2002 to add 1,200 new and expanded community health center sites nationwide and increase the number of people served annually from 10 million to 16 million by 2006. The program has funded nearly 700 new or expanded health centers. Almost 40 percent of the patients treated at these health centers have no insurance coverage, and others have inadequate coverage, according to the department.
The grants, totaling $49 million, will help 76 health centers provide services to an estimated 488,000 Americans, including many without health insurance. The grants will be made in December contingent upon the availability of fiscal year 2005 funds.
"Nearly half a million Americans, who otherwise would have gone without health care, will soon have access to health care services in their community," HHS Secretary Tommy G.. Thompson said in a press release, "These grants are all about bringing health care to the people who need it most, in the areas where it's needed most."
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H-1B Visa Cap for Next Fiscal Year Almost Reached
By Huijuan Jia
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2004 -- Lonza Biologics, Inc., whose U.S. headquarters are in Portsmouth, routinely rotates employees from its foreign sites worldwide, a practice that has allowed the company to thrive. But they have recently run into problems as the number of visas available to foreign workers has dwindled.
Every year U.S. companies hire thousands of foreign professionals who need to apply for H-1B visas in order to work in this country. But this year, many employers in need of foreign workers may not be able to fill their vacancies because the H-1B visas available for fiscal year 2005, which starts Oct. 1, may soon be depleted.
Lonza, a biopharmaceutical manufacturer, has 45 foreign workers among its 450 employees. Eric Cook, Lonza's legal counsel, said that two senior executives of the company are H-1B visa holders, one the chief operating officer and the other a vice president.
"We just squeezed one of them in and got a visa before the 2004 cap cut off," Cook said in a telephone interview, "If we had been a day late, we would have had no options to bring him in before Oct. 1 and we would have had to wait for another year."
Thomas W. Hildreth, a Manchester lawyer who practices immigration law said Lonza Biologics "would have not been here if it weren't allowed to have transferred expertise that has been developed in Europe to the United States."
"So by allowing 45 foreign workers to come in, we created 450 direct U.S. jobs, not to mention hundreds and thousands supporting jobs that are directly tied to the operation," Hildreth said.
The U.S. government grants 65,000 H-1B visas a year to foreign workers in some specialty occupations, mainly in computer-related industries, architecture, engineering and surveying industries, jobs that companies say they can't fill with U.S. citizens. But the applications for these visas for fiscal year 2005 have almost reached the 65,000 quota.
A U.S. firm hiring an employee with an H-1B visa must demonstrate that it is unable to find a qualified American citizen for the job and must agree to pay the foreign worker a wage comparable to what a U.S. worker would earn, in addition to benefits.
In February of this year, a six months before the fiscal year ends, the quota was filled for 2004. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which runs the program, started accepting applications April 1 for fiscal 2005. The federal agency said by Aug. 18 it had received 45,900 H-1B applications for fiscal 2005. Earlier the bureau announced that as of Aug. 4, 40,000 H-1B petitions had been filed.
Chris Bentley, the spokesman for the citizenship and immigration services, said Tuesday the numbers for September should be released next week.
Out of the 65,000 visas, approximately 6,800 are reserved for Chile (1,400 visas) and Singapore nationals (5,400 visas) under their free trade agreements with the United States. Thus, the actual number of H-1B visas open to all other nationals is only 58,200.
U.S. employers who need foreign workers to fill key positions are keeping a close eye on the nearly filled quota.
In a Sept. 7 letter to all members of Congress, the Information Technology Association of America, a trade association representing companies including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, AT&T and Boeing, listed the H-1B visa issue as one of the eight legislative "Must-Do's" that it urged Congress to act on this session.
The H-1B visa shortage "seriously restricts the ability of U.S. businesses to vie for the best talent and hurts their long-term competitiveness in the United States and global markets," the letter said.
In another letter addressed to Congress regarding the H-1B visa issue, the lobbyist group Compete America , a coalition of more than 200 companies including Intel, Cisco Systems, DuPont, Eli Lilly and Hewlett-Packard, urged the lawmakers to support legislation that would provide an immediate exemption from the H-1B quota to foreign nationals graduating from U.S. universities with Masters and PhD degrees.
In April a bill to exempt up to 20,000 aliens holding a master's or higher degree from H-1B cap was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), though there has been no legislative action taken on it since.
Compete America said in its letter that in some areas of study, such as physical sciences and engineering, up to 50 percent of the Masters and PhD degrees awarded in any given year are earned by foreign nationals.
"The reality is that employers often have little choice but to hire American-educated foreign nationals either as new college hires through on-campus recruiting efforts or later in lateral moves as more experienced professionals," Compete America said in the letter.
The coalition also noted that refusing to issue H-1B visas to these foreign workers would make the United States lose talent to its global competitors. In past years, many foreign students had little choice but to wait for new H-1B visas to become available, because there was little employment opportunity in their home countries or other countries. That is no longer the case.
"Highly educated foreign nationals now have a world of career options," the coalition said in its letter, "It is imperative that we work to keep this homegrown talent in the United States instead of going to work for our competitors abroad."
The Information Technology Association also supported exclusion for workers with graduate degrees from U.S. schools.
"This is a simple step consistent with the goals of the country as well as the needs of the economy," said association President Harris Miller.
Lobbyists also suggested an increase in the H-1B visa cap to meet the actual demand for foreign workers.
The U.S. did not have any numerical restriction on H-1B visas until 1991, when Congress imposed a yearly ceiling of 65,000 visas. That cap was first hit in 1997, and again in 1998 due to an increase in demand for foreign workers driven by the booming economy in the mid 1990s.
In response to pressure from U.S. businesses, which included Bill Gates testifying on Capitol Hill in support of increasing the cap on H-1B visas, Congress passed the American Competitiveness and Work Force Improvement Act of 1998, which raised the cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 115,000 in 1999 and 2000. But the cap was still hit in both years.
In 2000, Congress increased the cap to 195,000 for 2001, 2002 and 2003. However, as the economy slowed down, less than half of the cap was reached in 2002 and 2003. Congress reduced the cap to its original level for 2004, resulting in the depletion of H-1B visas this February.
The right number of annual H-1B visas lies somewhere between 115,000 and 195,000, said Hildreth, the Manchester immigration lawyer.
"When I look at the numbers, the history of up and down nature, it is the frequent changing of the target that has been the problem," Hildreth said in a telephone interview. "It has made it difficult for the employers who do use H-1B workers to rely on and to have confidence that it will be available when the need is there."
