House Version of Must-Pass Spending Package Includes Retirement Plan Lab Provision
2. Senior Fraud Prevention Act of 2022
This section, page 1919 of the Rules Committee PDF, would create a Senior Fraud Advisory Office at the Federal Trade Commission.
The office would help seniors and their caregivers cope with “mail, television, internet, telemarketing and robocall fraud targeting seniors, including descriptions of the most common fraud schemes.”
Another, related section, the “Fraud and Scam Reduction Act” would set up a Senior Scams Prevention Advisory Group” that could include any government official, consumer advocate or industry representative approved by the FTC.
3. Medicare COVID-19 Emergency Telehealth Rules Extension
The Medicare program has traditionally been hostile to many types of telehealth providers.
Congress and program managers eased the rules in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Telehealth Flexibility Extensions, on page 1861 of the House Rules PDF, would extend the emergency telehealth rules until 151 days after the end of the COVID-19 emergency period.
Congress has put some important programs and tax breaks in place by adopting a short-term measure, and then voting to keep the temporary measure in place over and over again, for years.
The telehealth rule extension provision in the new House spending package suggests that Congress could end up using that approach to keeping the current looser Medicare telehealth approach in place.
4. Money Laundering in the U.S. Real Estate Market
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network provision, on page 5 of the Division E PDF on the main House bills-to-be-considered site, could affect financial professionals with clients who invest in real estate.
The section requires FinCEN to “provide regular updates on its efforts to address the vulnerabilities to money laundering that exist in the U.S. real estate market, including regulations for new recordkeeping and reporting requirements for non-financed real estate transactions.”
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