Privately-insured patients transported by air ambulance providers outside of their insurers' provider networks are at financial risk for balance bills—which, as the figure shows, are for the difference between prices charged by providers and payments by insurers. Any balance bills are in addition to copayments or other types of cost-sharing typically paid by patients under their insurance cover

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has taken formal and informal steps to encourage board diversity at Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBank) since 2015. For example, FHFA required FHLBanks to add board demographic data to their annual reports; clarified how banks can conduct outreach to diverse board candidates; and allowed some banks to add an independent director.Since 2015, the share of wom

Potential effects on consumers are included in the analyses the Department of Transportation (DOT) conducts when reviewing international air carriers' requests for antitrust immunity. If granted, this immunity allows the airlines to engage in certain cooperative activities, such as coordinating prices and schedules, without risk of violating U.S. antitrust laws (see figure). DOT's analyses examin

The United Nations (UN) Security Council establishes and renews peacekeeping operations by issuing resolutions, generally referred to as mandates, which can include a range of tasks, such as monitoring ceasefires and protecting civilians. Generally once or twice a year, the Security Council renews an operation's mandate and makes adjustments as needed. GAO's review of the Department of State's (S

The four major Department of Defense (DOD) software-intensive space programs that GAO reviewed struggled to effectively engage system users. These programs are the Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center Mission System Increment 2 (JMS), Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX), Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS); and the Navy's Mobile User Objective System (MUOS). These ongoing progra

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has identified several fraud risks to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP). These include risks associated with school owners and designated school officials (DSO) who help ICE oversee students in the program. These fraud risks may occur as schools apply to become SEVP-certified, accept foreign s

There is no single source of data on political appointees serving in the executive branch that is publicly available, comprehensive, and timely. Political appointees make or advocate policy for a presidential administration or support those positions. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and two nongovernmental organizations collect, and in some cases, report data on political appointees, but

The Department of Defense (DOD) has taken steps to implement its Chief Management Officer (CMO) position which has been given the responsibility for managing DOD's business operations; however, unresolved issues remain for DOD to fully institutionalize the CMO's authorities and responsibilities. DOD has restructured the Office of the CMO (OCMO) to more closely align with the CMO's statutory autho

The Department of Defense (DOD) does not routinely monitor the size, mix, and location of its space acquisition workforce. However, data GAO collected and aggregated from multiple DOD space acquisition organizations show that at least 8,000 personnel in multiple locations nationwide were working on space acquisition activities at the end of 2017. Military and civilian personnel comprise the major

The Department of Defense's (DOD) analytic approach has not provided senior leaders with the support they need to evaluate and determine the force structure necessary to implement the National Defense Strategy. DOD's analytic approach—Support for Strategic Analysis (SSA)—is used by the services to evaluate their force structure needs and develop their budgets. However, GAO found that SSA has