Declarations

Declarations

Governor says stop

“Insurance companies shouldn’t use someone’s illness as an excuse to raise profits. It’s wrong and we intend to stop it.”

— Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich comments on health insurers in the state raising premiums, during an event at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center. Blagojevich used his executive authority to make a rule that prevents insurance companies from considering someone’s health when deciding what premium to charge when renewing an individual policy. The administration contends it’s trying to keep individuals from being priced out of their health plans once they’ve had an illness or injury. Insurers only would be able to consider demographics and medical cost inflation when setting individual renewal premiums under the rule. It doesn’t apply to insurance policies that cover large groups of people because they are more insulated from price fluctuations because the risk is spread out. (AP)

ID theft

“They were buying shoes and clothes. There were piles and piles of clothing in the one apartment we searched. … Their house was lined with credit cards, receipts, checkbooks and W-2 forms.”

— Comments made by Lt. Doug Francis of the Worthington, Ohio police department regarding an Ohio woman’s personal information that was stolen from the Franklin County Municipal Court Web site. The information taken from the site was used to open fraudulent credit cards, prompting the court clerk to limit public access to the site, authorities said. By plugging numbers into the court’s public Web site, thieves obtained the woman’s name, address, date of birth and Social Security number, Francis said. The thieves applied for credit reports and requested new credit cards from banks and lending agencies in the woman’s name, police said. Court Clerk Lori Tyack said she responded by shutting down access to Social Security numbers and Ohio driver’s license numbers on the Web site. Those search functions were legitimately used by law enforcement and employers for background checks on job applicants. The Web site, which has permitted public searches of court records since 2001, has been changed to allow searches only by name. (AP)

Highway safety

“Tough safety requirements and new technologies are helping make our vehicles safer and our roads less deadly … but we all must do more when so many are killed or seriously hurt on our roads every day.”

— The number of people who died on the nation’s roads fell last year, leading to the lowest highway fatality rate ever recorded and the largest drop in total deaths in 15 years, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters recently announced. In 2006, 42,642 people died in traffic crashes, a drop of 868 deaths compared to 2005. This 2 percent decline in traffic deaths contributed to the historic low fatality rate of 1.42 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT), Secretary Peters said. Most significantly, fatalities of occupants of passenger vehicles — cars, SUVs, vans and pickups — continued a steady decline to 30,521, the lowest annual total since 1993, Secretary Peters said.