Tag: state
Florida House Passes Religious Exemption To Block Gay Adoptions

Florida House Passes Religious Exemption To Block Gay Adoptions

By Gray Rohrer, Orlando Sentinel (TNS)

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The Florida House on Thursday approved $690 million in tax cuts and a bill allowing residents fleeing hurricanes to carry guns without a permit, but the bill attracting the most controversy allows private adoption agencies to reject gay couples if they have a religious or moral objection.

The vote for that measure (HB 7111) was 75-38, with most Democrats opposing the bill, calling it state-sponsored discrimination.

Representative David Richardson (D-Miami Beach), likened the measure to the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans in the 1960s, citing the sit-ins at the lunch counters of Greensboro, N.C., in 1960.

“If you’re open to the public, you’re open to the public,” said Richardson, the first openly gay member of the Legislature. “If the lunch counter’s open, it’s open for everyone.”

Republicans, however, countered that forcing religious adoption agencies to either go against their consciences or shut down would ultimately lead to less opportunities for children in need of foster parents. Also, gay couples can go to another of Florida’s 82 adoption agencies if they are refused, they argued.

Representative Scott Plakon (R-Longwood), suggested lawsuits were already being lined up to restrain religious adoption agencies from refusing gay couples.

“You may disagree with their beliefs, you may even think that they’re crazy, but they are their sincerely held beliefs,” said Representative Scott Plakon (R-Longwood).

Social conservative groups put pressure on Republican legislators after the House voted last month to strike down Florida’s ban on gay adoption. An appeals court struck down the provision in 2010 and the Florida Department of Children and Families doesn’t enforce the ban, but the statute has remained on Florida’s books.

The bill still needs to pass the Senate.

Most Democrats also objected to SB 290, which would allow residents under mandatory evacuation orders to carry firearms without a concealed weapons permit up to 48 hours after the order is given.

Representative Ed Narain (D-Tampa), said the bill would bring unintended consequences, especially for black males, similar to the “stand your ground” law.

“It’s the potential combination of these two (laws) that could mix and create a deadly scenario that none of us want to imagine or even consider,” Narain said.

But Republicans in favor of the bill said it was needed to protect property during hectic evacuation periods, especially firearms that aren’t protected through permits or licenses.

“What some people in this chamber don’t understand…is that you can’t get a permit or a license for a rifle or a shotgun,” said Representative Neil Combee (R-Polk City).

The bill passed 86-26 and now heads to Governor Rick Scott’s desk.

A bill garnering more bipartisan support was HB 7141, which cuts $690 million in taxes, mostly from cable, satellite, and phone bills. The cut to the communication services tax will save TV and phone users $470 million, with the average cable user spending $100 a month saving about $43 over 12 months. The cut is a top priority for Scott.

Although some Democrats bemoaned parts of the bill cutting sales taxes on gun club memberships and providing a sales tax holiday for some firearms and ammunition on July Fourth, the bill passed 112-3.

The Senate has advanced individual tax cut bills but because of the uncertainty surrounding the Medicaid budget that the chamber is waiting to pass its preferred tax-cutting measures.

Photo: Second Judicial Circuit Guardian ad Litem Program via Flickr

Cyberattacks On State Databases Escalate

Cyberattacks On State Databases Escalate

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — State governments are facing a daily barrage of cyberattacks from increasingly sophisticated computer hackers. The hackers’ rapidly changing tactics threaten the exposure of personal information of millions of people and can cost millions of dollars to fix.
“We see attacks on Texas’ system to the tune of millions a month,” said Karen Robinson, Texas’ state chief information officer.
Although breaches of Texas state computers are rare, Robinson said, the risks are high. They can result in the theft of Social Security numbers, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and even personal and business financial information.
All states face a growing number of wide-ranging, quickly evolving attacks, according to a report from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers and the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche.
Despite the threat, the report found, state legislators often don’t give their technology and security officials enough money to fight it, and states struggle to retain technologically savvy cybersecurity personnel.
The report said the dangers of insufficient cybersecurity are high, not only for people citizens whose personal information can be compromised, but also for taxpayers and the public’s trust in government.
“These incidents have cost states millions of dollars in clean-up costs, as well as a loss of both revenues and public trust,” the report said. “The problem is not likely to go away any time soon, as cybercriminals continue to be drawn to the wealth of data residing in each state.”
State computers hold a treasure trove of personal information. Motor vehicle agencies have dates of birth and driver’s license numbers. Health agencies have people’s birth certificates and Social Security numbers. Tax records show what banks people and businesses have accounts with. States also have credit card numbers from people who have made payments to state agencies.
“You can get pretty much everything on someone out of state computers,” said Srini Subramanian, a state cybersecurity specialist with Deloitte who co-authored the report. “It makes them a very attractive target to cybercriminals.”

Recent breaches point up the dangers and the costs:
Montana notified 1.3 million people in June that their personal data was possibly exposed to hackers in a breach of state Department of Public Health and Human Services computers a year earlier. The state said there was no evidence that personal information was stolen, but offered free credit monitoring and insurance for a year to those they notified.

Washington state’s court system was hacked in February, exposing up to 160,000 Social Security numbers and a million driver’s license numbers. The courts’ administration office said some numbers in its computers had definitely been accessed.

California’s Department of Technology reported 7,345 data breaches at state departments and agencies from the beginning of 2013 through early November last year, KNTV television reported. The state had to notify 23,379 people that their personal information may have been compromised, and spent at least $5 million to fix the breaches.
Although not every state database has been badly breached, the threat is a daily one. Six out of 10 of the state chief information and security officers from 49 states pointed to greater sophistication in the attacks, the report said. That’s an increase from two years ago, when a similar report found that roughly half saw more sophisticated tactics.

“Everybody is getting hit daily,” said Michael Cockrill, chief information officer for Washington state.
Cockrill, who recently came to his new job from the private sector, said he’s seen reports that as many as 40 percent of cyberattacks launched in the U.S. originate from inside his state.
Thieves want the personal information stored by states because it helps enable identity theft that opens greater doors of financial opportunity, the information officers said. That’s more valuable than just credit card information, which can be damaging enough.
“Health records are valuable because they have so much information,” Cockrill said of the dates of birth and Social Security numbers they can contain. “Health records are worth $10 on the black market, credit cards a dollar.”

Although the report’s survey said the security officials’ biggest fear is the placement of malicious software code in state computers, other threats are on the rise that can compromise personal information.
Eight out 10 of the officers predict an increase in “phishing” and “pharming” for personal or business information, and 72 percent predict more “social engineering” of people — manipulating them into divulging personal information or tricking them into schemes to defraud them.
Phishing attacks usually involve fraudulent email messages that guide victims to fake websites that look legitimate, but which are designed to obtain personal information such as passwords to their financial accounts.
Pharming redirects people from legitimate websites that have been tampered with to other sites that are fake.
Also on the rise is “hacktivism,” the hacking into government computers to make social statements, cause mayhem or provide platforms for activist groups to gain exposure.

“They aren’t after financial gains,” Deloitte’s Subramanian said. “They want to make a statement. And what’s a better place to make a statement than on a state government site.”
One example, he said, is Ferguson, Mo., where police computers and those of police unions were attacked by activists seeking the identity of the officer involved in the racially charged shooting this summer that set off nights of civil unrest.
Only 24.5 percent of the information and security officers said they were “very confident” they could protect against cyberthreats, the report found. That’s little different from two years ago, when 24 percent said the same thing.
In contrast, 60 percent of officials in the state departments and agencies that the information technology officers serve say they are very confident in their states’ abilities to protect them.
That disconnection between the information technology people on the front lines and other state officials helps explain why states aren’t putting as much money into cybersecurity as they should, Subramanian said.

About half the states allocate only 1 percent to 2 percent of their information technology budgets to security, the report said. The federal government, by contrast, allocates about 11 percent, Cockrill said.
States rely in large part on outside security software companies to help protect and police their computer systems. And despite their increased sophistication in surveillance, protection and response, most state officers said they are only somewhat confident in their cybersecurity.
States also have trouble getting and hanging onto trained cybersecurity personnel.
Fifty-nine percent of the officers surveyed for the report said they are short on trained people. That’s up from the 46 percent who said so two years ago.
The officers say states simply cannot pay as much as the private sector. That’s especially true in high-tech Washington state.
“We’ve been hiring people from Eastern Europe to provide security,” Cockrill said. “We’re a training ground for the private sector. They come, they get trained and get paid twice as much or more in the private sector.”

To recruit new security analysts, Cockrill is turning to military veterans. With some grant money, he’s seeking to give them computer skills to supplement the security and threat analysis experience they have from their military service. To retain them, he said, he’ll have to appeal to their sense of duty, because he can’t pay salaries nearly as high as what is available in the private sector.

AFP Photo/Greg Wood

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Here’s What You Need To Know For National Voter Registration Day

Here’s What You Need To Know For National Voter Registration Day

Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day, a concerted effort by volunteers, organizations, celebrities, and leaders across the country to register Americans to vote before important upcoming elections. This year’s midterm elections, which will be held on November 4, will decide 417 members of the U.S. Congress, 36 governors, and 46 state legislatures.

If you need to register, you should check out your state’s elections website. To find the correct website, go to rockthevote.com, click on your state, and you will be redirected to the state elections page. In order to vote in any state you must be a citizen of the United States, 18 or older, and, at the very least, a resident of that state on the day of the election. By federal law, a state cannot require you to be a resident for longer than 30 days to be eligible to vote.

You can print out registration forms and mail them in, but if you are registering for the first time with a mail-in form, most states will require that you show some kind of federal or state-issued I.D. with your address on it, or a current utility bill, bank statement, or paycheck when you vote. But states’ requirements for documentation do vary, so use the state election website to find the specific requirements.

Some states, like Iowa and Colorado, have switched to online registration, but most still have a paper-based process.

Apart from using the state website to download registration forms to print out and mail in, you can also pick up the necessary forms at your local secretary of state’s office.

The forms must be dropped off or postmarked by the registration deadline. You can also register at your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, provided you meet the deadline and are an eligible voter per other state requirements.

Another way to register is by a third-party site or registration drive. Third-party sites like Turbovote.org, NationalVoterRegistrationDay.org, Rockthevote.com, and Vote411.org help facilitate and streamline the process instead of having to work through your state’s own election page.

In almost all states, you can register to vote by mail using the National Mail Voter Registration Form; North Dakota, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands do not accept this form, while New Hampshire accepts it only as a request for an absentee voter mail-in registration form.

You can also use the National Mail Voter Registration Form to update your registration if you changed your name or address, or want to register with a political party.

In order to be eligible to vote, you must submit your registration form by your state’s deadline. You can find a complete list of registration deadlines by state on USA.gov‘s voting page.

If you happen to live in North Dakota, you don’t have to register at all. North Dakota is the only state that doesn’t require its residents to register in order to vote.

Photo via Neighborhood Centers Inc. via Flickr

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Obamacare Enrollment Varies Widely From State To State

Obamacare Enrollment Varies Widely From State To State

By Noam Levey, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Sign-ups for insurance through President Barack Obama’s health-care law varied widely across the nation in the first year for the system’s state marketplaces, according to a new government report that shows consumers flocked to coverage in some states while enrollment fell well short of targets elsewhere.

These differences could have a major impact on what happens to rates next year, with added pressure on consumers in states with low enrollment.

Enrollment lagged the most in states that were running their own marketplaces, including Massachusetts and Oregon, which struggled with their online systems. The two states fell more than 70 percent short of their goals.

Even several states considered successes, including Kentucky, had relatively few sign-ups for marketplace plans, though Kentucky had strong Medicaid enrollment. Altogether, 20 states fell short of projections made last year by the Department of Health and Human Services.

By contrast, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Florida all recorded more than twice as many sign-ups as federal officials had hoped for.

California, which led all states with more than 1.4 million sign-ups, had 8 percent more than projected.

“While there is a lot of focus on the national numbers, it’s what is happening state by state that will affect how much premiums rise next year,” said Kaiser Family Foundation Senior Vice President Larry Levitt, an insurance expert.

“Insurers set premiums based on who signs up in a state. If lots of healthy people enrolled in California, that doesn’t spill over into Texas and help the risk pool there.”

The Obama administration Thursday celebrated the national tally, which was 8.019 million through April 19, according to the administration.

A flood of sign-ups in late March and in the extended April enrollment period included many younger consumers, who are prized by insurers because they typically cost less.

The report indicates that national Medicaid enrollment increased by 4.8 million between Oct. 1 and the end of March, as low-income Americans signed up for the program.

“We are ensuring that health coverage is more accessible than ever before, which is important for families, for businesses and for the nation’s health and well-being,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.

The law’s critics charge that far fewer of the new enrollees have paid their premiums. But insurance industry officials have put the payment rate at around 85 percent.

Wellpoint, one of the nation’s largest insurers, reported this week that about 90 percent of its new customers had paid their premiums.

The company also backed off earlier warnings about big 2015 premium increases, reporting in a call with investors that a late surge of young customers had improved the company’s risk pool.

However, executives at the company cautioned rates could increase more in some parts of the country.

The health law allows Americans who do not get coverage through an employer to select a plan on state-based marketplaces where insurers must offer a basic set of benefits. Insurers can no long turn away sick customers.

Americans making less than four times the federal poverty level — or about $94,000 for a family of four — qualify for government subsidies in most parts of the country.

The Obama administration is already in intense discussions with insurance industry leaders to try to keep premiums from spiking in select, high-risk markets around the country.

Industry officials are most concerned about states where insurers continue to sell health plans that do not meet new standards set out in the law.

These noncompliant plans are not being offered on the new marketplaces and so allow many healthy consumers who have such plans to remain out of their state marketplaces.

That, in turn, means that the mix of consumers who are getting health plans on the state marketplaces tends to be sicker, creating a bad risk pool.

The marketplaces depend on having a mix of healthy and unhealthy consumers to balance risk and keep premiums in check.

About half the states have allowed insurers to continue to sell these plans, an option Obama gave states last year amid public outcry over the cancellation of many plans.

Low enrollment in many of these same state marketplaces threatens to exacerbate problem of a bad risk pool.

By contrast, insurers in states with stronger enrollment — including HealthNet and Blue Shield of California, two of that state’s dominant carriers — have been more upbeat about the premium picture.

“The most encouraging thing is the sheer number of people who enrolled,” Blue Shield of California CEO Paul Markovich said at an industry convention last week. “If the number is really big, they can’t all be old and sick.” Markovich said the bigger threat to rates may come from rising medical prices.

In the longer term, the mixed enrollment picture may also impact Americans’ health.

In addition to variations in marketplace sign-ups, state enrollment in Medicaid is diverging as only about half the states have elected to expand their programs under the health law.

Recent polling from Gallup indicates that between 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, the uninsured rate fell from 16.1 percent to 13.6 percent in the 21 states that are expanding Medicaid and have elected to fully or partially operate their own insurance marketplaces, rather than defer that job to the federal government.

The uninsured rate dropped a third as fast in the remaining states that have not fully embraced the law, from 18.7 percent to 17.8 percent.

Residents of states with higher levels of insurance coverage typically have fewer problems seeing the doctor and get more recommended medical care. They also tend to live longer .

“It doesn’t matter how good the care in a particular state is, if people can’t get in the door, they can’t receive high-quality care,” said David Radley, a researcher at the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan foundation that has extensively analyzed disparities in health-care systems nationally.

Photo via Flickr