Coalition takes Biden to task for falling short...

universities it operates.

medical providers need to collect their money and stay in business.

“We appreciate the challenges, but a broad ban on credit reporting could have some unintended consequences,” said Jack Brown III, president of Florida-based Gulf Coast Collection Bureau, citing the prospect of struggling hospitals and other providers closing, which would reduce care options.

Brown, a past president of ACA International, the collection industry’s leading trade association, warned that more medical providers would also start demanding upfront payment, putting additional pressure on patients.

To further protect patients from out-of-pocket costs like these, many advocates say hospitals, particularly those that are exempt from taxes because they are supposed to serve the community, must make financial aid more accessible, a key demand in the group’s letters. “For too long, nonprofit hospitals have not been behaving like nonprofits,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of the nonprofit Georgia Watch. Charity care is offered at most U.S. hospitals. And nonprofit medical systems must provide aid as a condition of being taxexempt. But at many medical centers, information about this assistance is difficult or impossible to find.

Standards also vary widely, with aid at some hospitals limited to patients with income as low as $13,590 a year. At other hospitals, people making five or six times that much can get assistance.

The result is widespread confusion that has left countless u PAGE 4

Sunday” march for voting rights through Selma, Alabama, Biden issued executive order 14019, “Promoting Access to Voting.” The move was intended to expand voter registration opportunities in federal agency programs.

Two years later, at a March 2 press briefing, members of the coalition offered a new report, “Strengthening Democracy: A Progress Report on Federal Agency Action to Promote Access to Voting,” assessing the work of 10 federal agencies in implementing Biden’s order.

Three are “on the right track,” the report found, but “most have either made minimal progress on their initial strong commitments or have left important opportunities on the table.”

Were they to “integrate a high-quality voter registration opportunity for the people they serve,” said Jesselyn McCurdy, of the Leadership Conference, those agencies “could collectively generate an additional 3.5 million voter registration applications per year.”

She continued, “While state after state imposes more barriers to the ballot, a divided Congress gives us little hope for restoring and strengthening the voting rights we so desperately need… Not since the Jim Crow era have we seen such opposition to freely casting and accurately counting our ballots.”

McCurdy added that “with legislation stalled for the foreseeable future, we are looking to the Biden-Harris administration to do everything within their executive power to protect the right to vote.”

Registering Native American voters

Jacqueline De Leon of the Native American Rights Fund noted Native American voters are “uniquely situated to benefit from this executive order.”

Although “Native Americans do not regularly interact with state agencies, such as the DMV, where many Americans are provided with the most meaningful registration opportunity,” she said, the situation is different when it comes to federal agencies “in a government-to-government capacity and in fulfillment of their treaty rights.”

The Department of the Interior was one of just three agencies of the 10 covered in the report deemed “on the right track” for providing high-quality voter registration services at two

At the other end of the spectrum, Indian Health Services was rated “falling behind” for showing “no signs of follow-through” on its initial commitment to offer registration to its clients: “2.5 million of the most underserved Native Americans yearly,” De Leon said. De Leon commended the Department of Veteran Affairs’ pilot programs in Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania and its nonpartisan information about registration and elections on its website. Treasury, by boosting voter registration access at IRS tax preparation clinics and training staff in the process, also got an “on the right track” designation. Meeting eligible voters where they’re at “One of the single most impactful actions that the Biden administration can take under this executive order,” said Laura Williamson, of Demos, is for the Department of Health and Human Services to improve the voter registration element of its website

Pagpapalathala: Ika-16 ng Pebrero, Ika-23 ng Pebrero, Ika-2 ng Marso, Ika-9 ng Marso, 2023

TAG: Pagsasara ng Pagpaparehistro, Espesyal na Halalan, Tagalog

PAUNAWA PARA SA MGA MANGHAHALAL SA PAGSASARA NG PAGPAPAREHISTROPARA SA

2023 PUROK 1 ESPESYAL NA HALALAN NA GAGANAPIN SA LUNES, IKA-3 NG ABRIL, 2023 SA LUNGSOD NG HENDERSON

ANG PAGPAPAREHISTRO AY MAGSASARA SABADO, IKA-18 NG MARSO, 2023

ANG PAUNAWA’NG ITO AY NAGBIBIGAY NANG KAALAMAN na ang pagpaparehistro ng botante para sa 2023 Purok 1 Espesyal na Halalan na gaganapin sa Lunes, ika-3 ng Abril, 2023, ay magsasara sa Sabado, ika-18 ng Marso, 2023 sa 5:00 n.h.

Ang kahit na sino ma’ng karapat-dapat na manghahalal na ang pangalan ay hindi makikita sa opisyal na talaan ay maaari’ng magparehistro sa pamamagitan ng pagbisita ng pangkaraniwa’ng oras ng pangangalakal, sa Lalawigan ng Clark Sentro ng Halalan, 965 Trade Drive, Suite A, North Las Vegas o sa Lungsod ng Henderson Tanggapan ng Kawani, 240 South Water Street, Henderson. Ang Lalawigan ng Clark Kagawaran ng Halalan ay bukas Lunes hanggang Huwebes, 7:30 n.u. hanggang 5:30 n.h. Ang Lungsod ng Henderson Tanggapan ng Kawani ay bukas Lunes hanggang Huwebes, 7:30 n.u. hanggang 5:30 n.h.

Mga pinahabang oras sa Lungsod ng Henderson Tanggapan ng Kawani

Sa ika-17 ng Marso at ika-18 ng Marso, ang pagpaparehistro ng bontante ay maaari’ng gawin nang personal sa Lungsod ng Henderson Tanggapan ng Kawani, 240 South Water Street, Henderson, NV 89015, sa panahon ng mga pinahabang oras tulad ng sumusunod:

Biyernes, ika-17 ng Marso, 2023 8:00 n.u. – 5:00 n.h.

Sabado, ika-18 ng Marso, 2023 8:00 n.u. – 5:00 n.h.

Upang magparehistro sa online, bisitahin ang website ng Lalawigan ng Clark Kagawaran ng Halalan sa http://www.clarkcountynv.gov/vote , at pumunta sa Serbisyo sa Online na Pagpaparehistro “Click Here” na buton. Ang serbisyo’ng ito ay magagamit 24 na oras sa isang araw. Para sa karagdagang impormasyon, pinapakiusap na makipag-ugnayan sa Lungsod ng Henderson Tanggapan ng Kawani, 240 South Water Street, Henderson, NV 89015, o sa pamamagitan ng pagtawag sa 702-267-1400 o sa website ng Lungsod sa www.cityofhenderson.com

WOMEN FARMERS SEEK JUSTICE. Police barricade the entrance to the Department of Justice main office in Manila on Wednesday, March 8 as protesters stage a rally in support of women farmers. Eight women farmers from Bataan who were accused of syndicated estafa demanded the dismissal of their case.

Biden administration urged to take more...

PAGE patients who should have been eligible for aid with large bills instead. A 2019 KHN analysis of hospital tax filings found that nearly half of nonprofit medical systems were billing patients with incomes low enough to qualify for charity care.

The groups are asking the IRS to issue rules that would set common standards for charity care and a uniform application across nonprofit hospitals. (Current regulations for charity care do not apply to for-profit or public hospitals.) The advocates also want the federal agency to strengthen limits on how much nonprofit hospitals can charge and to curtail aggressive collection tactics such as foreclosing on patients’ homes or denying or deferring medical care.

More than two-thirds of hospitals sue patients or take other legal action against them, such as garnishing wages or placing liens on property, according to a recent KHN investigation. A quarter sell patients’ debts to debt collectors, who in turn can pursue patients for years for unpaid bills. About 1 in 5 deny nonemergency care to people with outstanding debt.