Like to be a fly on the wall? Next teleconference on government regulations...

Future Town Hall Teleconference Meeting Dates - All town hall teleconferences will be held from 1:00pm to 3:00pm EST, unless otherwise noted.

• June 9 - Liability (including Self-Insurance), No-Fault Insurance and Workers' Compensation Policy - Q&A


• July 1 - Liability (including Self-Insurances), No-Fault Insurance and Workers' Compensation Technical Support Q&A


• July 8 - GHP (Group Health Plans) NOTE: This is like the one I covered today, June 4th, 2009. This teleconference will cover questions related to employer-paid health plans.

Visit the CMS site for a complete schedule through the end of 2009.

Worried about privacy? You should be. Update on MMSEA 111 teleconference

I just finished my first live Tweet reporting of a teleconference hosted by Medicare (technically, the "Centers for Medicare and Medicaid," or CMS). It was about the new federal requirement for employers to send quarterly reports of all subscriber personal information. I will create a report of my Tweets and post them where you can read them, or feel free to browse twitter.com/WriterMom08. In the meantime, here are my impressions:

1. CMS representatives sounded supportive, asking participants with questions to send details via email so they could help them after the teleconference.

2. HOWEVER--although CMS representative Bill Decker opened the session with assurances that this new government regulation is for cross-checking Medicare beneficiaries only, questions from attendees came up about getting social security numbers of spouses or employees in other locations who were refusing to provide them, as well as dates of birth. CMS's response: "We ask you to *ask* for the SSN, it doesn't hurt to ask." Sounds like if SSNs can be obtained, then go for it.

3. The new mandatory reporting allows employers to satisfy this requirement in either of two ways:

• By submitting "Active Covered Individuals" [those eligible for Medicare: age 55, handicapped, or on kidney dialysis]
• Or by using the "Finder File" feature [collect ALL employee and dependent personal information, filter list against Medicare's list or hire an outside contractor to do this, then submit to Medicare].

However, in both cases, the employer will be asking employees for spousal and dependent SSNs and dates of birth in order to determine Medicare eligibility--or, like my husband's employer, collect the information and send it to an outside third party to do the filter for submission to CMS.

I reiterate--I DO NOT WANT my husband's employer to have my SSN, or worse, some "outside third party." The SSN was never intended to be used as a de facto identifier anyway, so I object anytime it is used in this manner. Also, giving my SSN to an employer with whom I have no other contact is creepy. Why should they be able to access any information about me (or my children)? I know they're not "supposed to," but the potential for that exists; just think of Joe the Plumber (more details here).

But perhaps most frighteningly, giving up my SSN exposes me to greater potential of identity theft, since the information will be collected and disseminated in a myriad of electronic locations beyond my control, or beyond legitimate uses by the IRS or any of my previous actual employers. All it takes is for someone to lose a hard drive or for someone to steal a laptop for my personal information--and yours--to be compromised.

Tell me what you think.

In the meantime, if your spouse's employer asks for your SSN, use this form instead provided by the same agency requiring the collection of this information.

As for the potential for turning this into a National Healthcare Database, I think you can see how easy it would be to enlarge this system beyond simply "Medicare recipients." To comply, employers are already gathering your personal information for their quarterly reports to the government, including unprecedented collection of information on spouses and children of employees. It could be used as a national database of current healthcare beneficiaries, just a step away from becoming a national healthcare database.

Secret attempt to build National Healthcare Database already underway?

ALERT: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a branch of the Health & Human Services department of the federal government, is requiring employers under stiff penalites to gather and report all employee social security numbers, PLUS the SSNs of their SPOUSES and CHILDREN. Normally, an employer does not have the SSNs of an employee's family members as most health care benefits are paid under the employee's SSN. This "mandatory reporting" requirement began as a test mode earlier this year and is underway NOW.

There is a lot more detail about this regulation, but it is not only a violation of privacy and (possibly) SSN rules, it may be a disguised method for building the National Healthcare Databasethat the Obama administration has been talking about without allowing any national discussion or input from We The People.

Read more about the new MMSEA 111 regulation being implemented NOW, here at the CMS site.

Additionally, CMS is conducting a teleconference TODAY, June 4th, from 1pm to 3pm EST. As soon as I get the phone number, I will post it here on my blog, plus I'll announce it on Twitter and Facebook.

800-779-4354 - read the instructions HERE.*

THIS IS WRONG. We all must protest this activity NOW. I am in the process of contacting various news outlets to bring attention to this issue, but I need your help.

Here is my email I am using, and I encourage you to use this if you wish to contact your representatives and news outlets, too:

TODAY at 1pm EST, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) is conducting a teleconference call to explain to employers and insurers the NEW mandatory regs on collecting Social Security Numbers of not only covered employees in group plans, but their SPOUSES and their CHILDREN to be submitted quarterly to the CMS office through third party contractors.

I learned about this when the human resources department at my husband's employer contacted him via email requesting my SSN, although I am not an employee. I didn't want them to have my SSN nor access to my health records, so I investigated this and discovered that although this new regulation, called "MMSEA 111," is supposedly to identify group health participants who are also eligible for Medicare (I am not)--to reportedly stop Medicare fraud--but it could easily be a secret effort to set up a National Healthcare Database without public knowledge or consent.

This requires employers to throw a wide net to gather SSNs of spouses and children which they don't normally have in their records since benefits are usually paid under the employee's SSN--and as I mentioned, it shifts the burdern of verifying Medicare recipients from the public to the private sector and may be the first step toward a NATIONAL HEALTHCARE DATABASE.

NO ONE in the media is talking about this. The process started late last year and the additions to Medicare regulation was signed just a few months ago at the end of December 2008, and is being implemented RIGHT NOW.

I am not eligible for Medicare, nor does anyone in my family receive Medicare benefits, so therefore, we should NOT have to turn over our SSNs to my husband's employer nor to CMS! This is a violation of our privacy rights and our right to protect our own SSNs. My husband is upset at me now, because he fears losing his job over not giving up my SSN (top management there do not like what they perceive to be "troublemakers"). But this is wrong.

PLEASE FOLLOW UP ON THIS STORY.

Here is a direct link to this information at CMS: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MandatoryInsRep/

The next deadline for employers to comply with this new regulation is July 1st, just a few weeks away, during this initial "testing" phase in gathering and transferring all of these SSNs from employers to third party contractors who will then forward it to CMS.

Please help dig out the details of this massive collection of employee's families' private information, which includes the name, SSN, date of birth, and gender. This is gross example of a federal agency shifting the burden of verifying Medicare recipients--which is the agency's responsibility--to the private sector. But more insidiously, this may be a "behind-the-scenes" effort to build that National Healthcare Database without public discussion and voter participation.

Again, the teleconference is TODAY, June 4th, from 1pm to 3pm EST (800-779-4354).

I have a background as a human resources director and benefits specialist, so I understand the issues at stake. I welcome your questions and urge you to get this information out to the public as quickly as possible.

Sincerely,

Kimn Swenson Gollnick

* (PLEASE NOTE: If you join the teleconference, I suggest that you do so to listen only. I do not advise nor condone turning it into a protest, but to use it as a way to gather more information on this new regulation and to monitor the government's actions.)

Tragedy in Iowa City

While getting ready for class this morning I received a Hawk Alert from the University of Iowa. The message stated that an "active shooter" was in Iowa City, a male driving a 1998 Toyota Sienna tan minivan, and that if spotted, witnesses should call 9-1-1 from a safe location.

I jumped online to get more information from local news sites. They did a very good job providing details, but I noticed a post by a female visitor in which she complained about the Hawk Alert being used this way. What?!! This is EXACTLY how and when it should be used. Unlike many university campuses across the country which sit isolated on their own property, the University of Iowa campus is integrated with the downtown area of Iowa City--something I appreciate for the vibrant variety and feeling of community. It's charming and eclectic, college kids mixing with residents, bookstores and churches mixing with lecture buildings and class halls.

I appreciated the Hawk Alert so I could proceed to campus with caution. The message was not alarmist but factual. [Note: Read the dispute by some students about the Hawk Alert failing to "tell them what to do".]

And the story is extremely tragic. The suspected shooter is Steven Sueppel (age 42), a man who had been charged with stealing $559,040 from the bank where he worked as a vice president. He apparently shot his wife Sheryl (also 42) and their four young children in their home at 6:31 this morning. Police received a call from a cell phone telling them to get to the residence ASAP, then disconnected. It was probably Steven. He was not at the home when the police arrived and the family's Toyota Sienna minivan was missing.

A short time later, a Toyota Sienna minivan was found smashed into a sign support along I-80 fully engulfed in flames at approximately 7:00am this morning. A lone figure could be seen in the driver's seat, dead. An autopsy will be conducted tomorrow to determine if this is Steven.

Coming home from class this afternoon--eerily, in my 1998 Toyota Sienna minivan, although mine is blue--I turned off my radio and reflected on this man, his family and his choices.

I'm sure when he was a little boy, he never thought he would get into this kind of trouble. I'm sure his wife Sheryl, active on their school's PTA and interviewed once for local radio, didn't imagine how her life would end and that her husband, the man to whom she'd said "I do" and shared dreams for a future together, that this man would fall into the trap of lies and deceit, nor that he would turn on her and their four precious children and kill them.

I'm sure his children, Ethan, 10; Seth, 7; Mira, 5; and Eleanor, 3 (all adopted), had enjoyed a fun Easter weekend with their grandparents and family in the area and had no idea what their daddy was capable of. His choices, each step of the way and concluding this morning, wiped out six people's lives--five of whom were completely innocent.

His choices, what he did in secret, eventually came out and destroyed him and his family.

If we think our choices do not matter, then we must think again.

And choose differently.

Virginia Tech Tragedy

It's been two days since 32 students and faculty members were murdered by Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old loner who once signed a class list of names with only a question mark. He left everyone behind asking a lot of questions.

I have a few of my own:

First, although we're tempted to call Cho names like sicko, insane, psycho, disturbed, freaky, bizarre, twisted (and frankly, we'd be right)--isn't there a danger in doing so? By calling Cho names, we put him in a box, brush our hands with the satisfaction that we're nothing like him, and move on. Calling him names allows us to dismiss him as a freak and close our eyes from examining how he developed into this monster.

DO NOT get me wrong. I am NOT sympathetic toward Cho. From all the reports coming out now it's clear that Cho had serious emotional and psychological problems.

And that brings me to my second question. THAT'S what we need to understand--HOW did he get this way?

As a parent, I took time today to ask my own questions. About my own sons. How are they doing? Am I being the kind of parent they need? Am I too lax? Am I too busy? Do I make time for them and their concerns? Do I really listen?

I'm doing pretty good, but I can do better.

Starting right now.

This post also appeared in The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA) on Tuesday, 4/24/07.

Miracle in Missouri

Ben Ownby, the 13-year-old boy who disappeared while walking home from his school bus stop Monday afternoon, was FOUND alive and well yesterday, just four days later in an apartment 60 miles from his home in rural Missouri.

But he was not alone. Miraculously, officials found another boy, Shawn Hornbeck, who had been missing for four years since his abduction while riding his bike to a friend's house in October 2002. He was 11 years old at the time. He is now 15.

Police took 41-year-old Michael Devlin into custody. Multiple charges are pending.

I must admit, by Wednesday my hope had faded that Ben would be found alive. My attention turned to the unknown perpetrator(s), praying for discovery and arrest. No one could predict that finding Ben would lead to the rescue of another missing child! Of course, these boys will need psychological assistance, particularly Shawn due to the amount of time he lived with his abductor. But what a double miracle to find these two boys alive, to give them freedom and reunite them with their families. Although too many abductions do not end with good news, that's all the more reason to rejoice that this one did.

Once again, average citizens helped break this case. Mitchell Hults, a 15-year-old student who got off the same bus as Ben, described for police the white pickup truck he noticed driving erratically and speeding away from the area. At least one neighbor admitted seeing the truck earlier that day driving up and down the rural road raising suspicions, but didn't write down the license plate number nor call to report the suspicious activity to police. If anyone had, Ben could have been rescued that same evening. A girl living in the apartment complex where the boys were found told her mother three months ago she thought she recognized Shawn Hornbeck's face from a flyer, but her mother told her, "This is serious, we're not playing." Another resident, Jeff Hadler, told reporters that police came to the complex on an unrelated case Thursday night and he pointed out the truck parked in the lot, wondering if it was like the one reported in the media. Police got a search warrant and swarmed Devlin's apartment the next day--and found the two boys alive.

Once again, regular citizens armed with information from the media made the difference. Those citizens who didn't take time or assumed that what they saw or heard wasn't important, delayed Ben's (and Shawn's) rescue. Fortunately, both Ben and Shawn are alive and back with their families this weekend because Hults and Hadler observed details they reported to police.

"The key to finding the boys was a beat-up white pickup truck spotted by a schoolmate of Ben's who got off the bus at the same time. The friend saw the pickup speeding away...."
Read the ABC News report.

Watch videos of this story, including an interview with Sheriff Gary Toelke (click "Top Videos" and the headline "Extremely Happy Ending").