A bill to combat nursing home fraud and abuse, increase protections for victims of telemarketing fraud, enhance safeguards for pension plans and health care benefit programs, and enhance penalties for crimes against seniors

48 Pages·1999·2.1 MB·English

by  United States. Congress. House

I
106th congress H. R. 1862
1st Session
To combat nursing home fraud and abuse, increase protections for victims
of telemarketing fraud, enhance safeguards for pension plans and health
care benefit programs, and enhance penalties for crimes against seniors,
and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 19, 1999
Mr. CONYERS (for himself, Mr. HOEPFEL, and Mr. Udall of New Mexico)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary
A
BILL
To combat nursing home fraud and abuse, increase protec-
tions for victims of telemarketing fraud, enhance safe-
guards for pension plans and health care benefit pro-
grams, and enhance penalties for crimes against seniors,
and for other purposes.
1 Be it enacted hy the Senate and House ofRepresenta-
2 tives ofthe United States ofAmerica in Congress assembled,
3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
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4 (a) Short Title. This Act may be cited as the
5 "Seniors SafetyAct of 1999".
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6 (b) Table op Contents. The table of contents for
7 this Act is as follows:
2
Sec. 1. Short title; table ofcontents.
See. 2. Findings and purposes.
Sec. 3. Definitions.
TITLE I—STRATEGIES FOR PREVENTING CRIMES AGAINST
SENIORS
Sec. 101. Study ofcrimes against seniors.
Sec. 102. Inclusion ofseniors in national crime victimization survey.
TITLE II—COMBATING CRIMES AGAINST SENIORS
Sec. 201. Enlianced sentencingpenalties based on age ofvictim.
Sec. 202. Study and report on health care fraud sentences.
Sec. 203. Increased penalties for fraud resulting in serious injury or death.
Sec. 204. Safeguarding pension plans from fraud and theft.
Sec. 205. Additional civil penalties for defrauding pension plans.
Sec. 206. Punishing bribery and graft in connection with employee benefit
plans.
TITLE III—PREVENTING TELEMARKETING FRAUD
Sec. 301. Centralized complaint and consumer education service for victims of
telemarketing fraud.
Sec. 302. Blocking oftelemarketing scams.
TITLE IV—PREVENTING HEALTH CARE FRAUD
See. 401. Injunctive authority relating to false claims and illegal kickback
schemes involvingFederal health care programs.
Sec. 402. Authorized investigative demand procedures.
Sec. 403. Extending antifraud safeguards to the Federal employee health bene-
fits program.
Sec. 404. Grandjury disclosure.
Sec. 405. Increasing the effectiveness of civil investigative demands in false
claims investigations.
TITLE V—PROTECTING RESIDENTS OF NURSING HOMES
Sec. 501. Short title.
Sec. 502. Nursing home resident protection.
TITLE VI—PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF ELDERLY CRIME
VICTIMS
Sec. 601. Use of forfeited funds to pay restitution to crime victims and regu-
latory agencies.
See. 602. Victim restitution.
Sec. 603. Bankruptcy proceedings not used to shield illegal gains from false
claims.
Sec. 604. Forfeiture for retirement offenses.
1 SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
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2 (a) Findings. Congress makes the following fmd-
3 ings:
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1 (1) The number of older Americans is Rowing
2 both numerically and proportionally in the United
3 States. Since 1990, the population of seniors has in-
4 creased by almost 5,000,000, and is now 20.2 per-
5 cent of the United States population.
6 (2) In 1997, 7 percent of victims of serious vio-
7 lent crime were age 50 or older.
8 (3) In 1997, 17.7 percent of murder victims
9 were age 55 or older.
10 (4) According to the National Crime Victimiza-
11 tion Survey, persons aged 50 and older experienced
12 approximately 673,460 incidents of violent crime, in-
13 eluding rape and sexual assaults, robberies and gen-
14 eral assaults, during 1997.
15 (5) Older victims of violent crime are almost
16 twice as likely as younger victims to be raped,
17 robbed, or assaulted at or in their own homes.
18 (6) Approximately half of Americans who are
19 50 years old or older feel afraid to walk alone at
20 night in their own neighborhoods.
21 (7) Seniors over the age of 50 reportedly ac-
22 count for 37 percent of the estimated
23 $40,000,000,000 in losses each year due to tele-
24 marketing fraud.
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1 (8) In 1998, Congress enacted legislation to
2 provide for increased penalties for telemarketing
3 fraud that targets seniors.
4 (9) There has not been a comprehensive study
5 of crimes committed against seniors since 1994.
6 (10) It has been estimated that approximately
7 43 percent of those turning 65 can expect to spend
8 some time in a long-term care facility, and approxi-
9 mately 20 percent can expect to spend 5 years or
10 longer in a such a facility.
11 (11) In 1997, approximately $82,800,000,000
12 was spent on nursing home care in the United
13 States and over half of this amount was spent by the
14 medicaid and medicare programs.
15 (12) Losses to fraud and abuse in health care
16 reportedly cost the United States an estimated
17 $100,000,000,000 in 1996.
18 (13) The Inspector General for the Department
19 of Health and Human Services has estimated that
20 about $12,600,000,000 in improper medicare benefit
21 payments, due to inadvertent mistake, fraud and
22 abuse, were made during fiscal year 1998.
23 (14) Incidents of health care fraud and abuse
24 remain high despite awareness of the problem.
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25 (b) Purposes. The purposes of this Act are to
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combat nursing home fraud and abuse;
1 (1)
2 (2) enhance safeguards for pension plans and
3 health care programs;
4 (3) develop strategies for preventing and pun-
5 ishing crimes that target or otherwise disproportion-
6 ately affect seniors by collecting appropriate data to
7 measure the extent of crimes committed against sen-
8 iors and determine the extent of domestic and elder
9 abuse of seniors; and
10 (4) prevent and deter criminal activity, such as
11 telemarketing fraud, that results in economic and
12 physical harm against seniors and ensure appro-
13 priate restitution.
14 SEC. 3. DEFINmONS.
15 In this Act
16 (1) the term "crime" means any criminal of-
17 fense under Federal or State law;
18 (2) the term "nursing home" means any insti-
19 tution or residential care facility defined as such for
20 licensing purposes under State law, or if State law
21 does not employ the term nursing home, the equiva-
22 lent term or terms as determined by the Secretary
23 of Health and Human Services, pursuant to section
24 1908(e) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C.
25 1396g(e)); and
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1 (3) the term "senior" means an individual who
2 is more than 55 years of age.
TITLE I—STRATEGIES FOR PRE-
3
VENTING CRIMES AGAINST
4
SENIORS
5
6 SEC. 101. STUDY OF CRIMES AGAINST SENIORS.
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7 (a) In General. The Attorney General shall con-
8 duet a study relating to crimes against seniors, in order
9 to assist in developing new strategies to prevent and other-
10 wise reduce the incidence of those crimes.
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11 (b) Issues Addressed. The study conducted
12 under this section shaU include an analysis of
13 (1) the nature and type of crimes perpetrated
14 against seniors, with special focus on
15 (A) the most common types of crimes that
16 affect seniorsj
17 (B) the nature and extent of telemarketing
18 fraud against seniors;
19 (C) the nature and extent of elder abuse
20 inflicted upon seniors;
21 (D) the nature and extent of financial and
22 material fraud targeted at seniors; and
23 (E) the nature and extent of health care
24 fraud and abuse targeting seniors;
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1 (2) the risk factors associated with seniors who
2 have been victimized;
3 (3) the manner in which the Federal and State
4 criminal justice systems respond to crimes against
5 seniors;
6 (4) the feasibility of States establishing and
7 maintaining a centralized computer database on the
8 incidence of crimes against seniors that will promote
9 the uniform identification and reporting of such
10 crimes;
11 (5) the nature and extent of crimes targeting
12 seniors, such as health care fraud and telemarketing
13 fraud originating from sources outside the United
14 States;
15 (6) the effectiveness of State programs funded
16 under the 1987 State Elder Abuse Prevention Pro-
17 gram in preventing and reducing the abuse and ne-
18 gleet of seniors; and
19 (7) other effective ways to prevent or reduce the
20 occurrence of crimes against seniors.
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21 (c) Report. Not later than 18 months after the
22 date of enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall
23 submit to the Committees on the Judiciary of the House
24 of Representatives and the Senate a report describing the
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1 results of the study under this section, which shall also
2 include
3 (1) an assessment of any impact of the sen-
4 tencing enhancements promulgated by the United
5 States Sentencing Commission pursuant to section
6 6(b) of the Telemarketing Fraud Prevention Act of
7 1998 (28 U.S.C. 994 note), including—
8 (A) the number of crimes for which sen-
9 tences were enhanced under that section; and
10 (B) the effect of those enhanced sentences
11 in deterring telemarketing fraud crimes tar-
12 geting seniors;
13 (2) an assessment of the factors that result in
14 the inclusion of seniors on the lists of names, ad-
15 dresses, phone numbers, or Internet addresses com-
16 piled by telemarketers or sold to telemarketers as
17 lists of potentially vulnerable consumers (i.e. "mooch
18 lists"); and
19 (3) an assessment of the nature and extent of
20 nursing home fraud and abuse, which shall
21 include
22 (A) the number of cases and financial im-
23 pact on seniors of fraud and abuse involving
24 nursing homes each year;
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1 (B) procedures used effectively by State,
2 local and Federal authorities to combat nursing
3 home fraud and abuse; and
4 (C) a description of strategies available to
5 consumers to protect themselves from nursing
6 home fraud and an evaluation of the effective-
7 ness of such strategies.
8 SEC. 102. INCLUSION OF SENIORS IN NATIONAL CRIME VIC-
9 TEMIZATION SURVEY.
10 Beginning not later than 2 years after the date of
1 1 enactment of this Act, as part of each National Crime Vic-
12 timization Survey, the Attorney General shall include sta-
13 tistics relating to
14 (1) crimes targeting or disproportionately af-
15 fecting seniors; and
16 (2) crime risk factors for seniors, including the
17 times and locations at which crimes victimizing sen-
18 iors are most likely to occur; and
19 (3) specific characteristics of the victims of
20 crimes who are seniors, including age, gender, race
21 or ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.
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TITLE II—COMBATING CRIMES
1
AGAINST SENIORS
2
3 SEC. 201. ENHANCED SENTENCING PENALTIES BASED ON
4 AGE OF VICTIM.
5 (a) Directive to the United States Sen-
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6 TENCING Commission. Pursuant to its authority under
7 section 994(p) of title 28, United States Code, and in ac-
8 cordance with this section, the United States Sentencing
9 Commission shall review and, if appropriate, amend sec-
10 tion 3Al.l(a) of the Federal sentencing guidelines to in-
11 elude the age of a crime victim as 1 of the criteria for
12 determining whether the application of a sentencing en-
13 hancement is appropriate.
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14 (b) Requirements. In carrying out this section,
15 the Commission shall
16 (1) ensure that the Federal sentencing guide-
17 lines and the policy statements of the Commission
18 reflect the serious economic and physical harms as-
19 sociated with criminal activity targeted at seniors
20 due to their particular vulnerability;
21 (2) consider providing increased penalties for
22 persons convicted of offenses in which the victim was
23 a senior in appropriate circumstances;
24 (3) consult with individuals or groups rep-
25 resenting seniors, law enforcement agencies, victims
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