Issues

A bill for fiscal year 2016 to respond to Zika virus; establish, expand, and support programs to train school staff to recognize and respond to signs of labor and sex trafficking; establishing a pilot program of developmental nurseries in federal prisons for children born to inmates; increase outreach for women- and minority-owned businesses under the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs more »

"... ongoing scheduling errors, such as incorrectly revising preferred dates when rescheduling appointments, understated the amount of time veterans waited to see providers. Officials attributed these errors to confusion by schedulers, resulting from the lack of an updated standardized scheduling policy. These errors continue to affect the reliability of wait-time data used for oversight, which makes it more difficult to effectively oversee newly enrolled veterans' access to primary care." more »

Bowing to pressure from the hospital industry and Congress, the Obama administration on Wednesday delayed releasing its new hospital quality rating measure just a day before its planned launch. The new "overall hospital quality" star rating aimed to combine the government's disparate efforts to measure hospital care into one easy-to-grasp metric. The new star rating boils 62 of the measures down into a unified rating of one to five stars, with five being the best. more »

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the US should support and protect the right of women working in developing countries to safe workplaces, free from gender-based violence, reprisals, and intimidation. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) A bill to place limitations on the possession, sale, and other disposition of a firearm by persons convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses against children. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) A bill to provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex. more »