But some vulnerable patients are probably going to feel a little cheated. Consider this coverage wrinkle:

Suppose your cancer is in remission. You had to quit your job while you were having chemotherapy, and your employer coverage ran out. You cant find a private insurer wholl take you, but youre lucky to live in a state that has its own high-risk pool. Still, you have to struggle to pay the premiums, well above standard insurance because sicker people are in the group. Yet as the federal program is designed, you wouldnt be able to switch over and take advantage of significant savings.

The reason: You have to be uninsured to qualify for the new plan.

“Its awkward,” said John Rother, senior strategist for AARP, which supported the overhaul. “None of us would want to see the program lock people in to the more expensive existing coverage, but to switch over all those people would have definitely boosted the cost, and Congress was looking for ways to minimize it.”

That means some 200,000 patients now enrolled in more than 30 state high-risk insurance pools will be stuck paying higher premiums. Many are on tight budgets, drawing down their savings and borrowing from family members.

Premiums in the new federal pool are expected to be 10 percent to 50 percent lower than current state rates, said Richard Popper, who directs Marylands program. Co-payments and deductibles are also expected to be considerably lower. But the only way current beneficiaries could get the federal coverage would be to drop out of their state pool and go uninsured for six months.

“That would be a very risky thing to do,” said Stephen Finan, policy director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. “Can you afford to go without coverage for six months in the hopes of getting a better price? Its a big gamble.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calls the federal risk pool a first step toward ending insurance discrimination against people with health problems. But HHS officials say Congress wrote the rules and theres nothing they can do to open up the program to people now in state pools. The federal pool is designed for the uninsured.

The program will be temporary, a bridge to 2014, when denial of coverage for medical reasons will be against the law, and new insurance markets will offer taxpayer subsidized coverage for millions. Number crunchers at Medicare estimate that 375,000 people will sign up this year.

Sebelius says she expects the plan will operate alongside state risk pools where such programs exist - making premium comparisons inevitable. Shes also planning a national program to serve people in states that have no risk pools, or opt not to participate.

Georgia insurance commissioner John Oxendine announced this week that his state would not. Oxendine, a Republican running for governor, questioned the constitutionality of the federal overhaul law, and said he thinks joining the new risk pool could end up costing state taxpayers money.

A recent report by Medicare economists warns that the program could go through $4 billion in its first year, and run out of money as early as 2011.

“These are some of the sickest people in the country, and therefore their costs would be dramatically higher - yet the law requires that they be subsidized to standard rates,” said Robert Laszewski, a health care industry consultant. “I think theyve given (Sebelius) an impossible task.”

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The 22-mile march begins in downtown Tampa and ends Sunday in Lakeland at Publix headquarters. This isnt the first time the group has railed against Publix, one of the countrys largest regional supermarket chains. A protest in central Florida in December drew some 500 people. The group is also urging a boycott against Publix.

Publix said in a statement Thursday that “the CIWs complaints should be addressed with the employers of the workers, not with retailers and their customers.”

Publix spokeswoman Shannon Patten said the groups call to not buy Publix tomatoes could end up hurting Florida residents and farmworkers by lessening demand for an important product. Florida provides most of the nations domestic winter tomato crop.

Patten added that it wasnt the supermarket chains role to negotiate tomato prices.

“That price is set by the grower or packer,” Patten said in the statement. “We do not intervene in labor disputes between suppliers and their employees. Each store carries more than 35,000 different products and tomatoes are a small part of our product mix.”

Coalition spokesman Gerardo Reyes said the march isnt just about the price paid to workers for picking tomatoes. Its also about how the workers are treated in the fields and why corporations should care.

“Forced labor, poverty, and abuse are all too real for Florida farmworkers,” Reyes said.

The coalition wants Publix to stop buying produce from growers that dont meet certain standards for workers in the fields. The group claims it took Publix more than a year to stop buying from two Florida tomato farms where four people forced workers to pick crops and were convicted on slavery charges in 2008.

The coalition, which claims membership of about 4,000 mostly migrant workers, gained national attention in recent years when it reached deals with fast-food chains, including McDonalds and Burger King. Its most recent deal came with food service giant Aramark, which agreed on April 1 to provide 1.5 cents more per pound of tomatoes and to abide by a supplier code of conduct.

According to Philip Martin, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California-Davis, gaining a penny more per pound will have a significant impact on farmworkers.

“It should increase their earnings a lot,” he said, estimating workers could see a 40 percent to 70 percent increase in earnings.

“The farm price has very little to do with the retail price, and thats true of all fruits and vegetables,” he said. “On average, farmers get 20 to 25 cents of each dollar. A fraction of that goes to farmworker. For instance, the labor cost in a dollar head of lettuce usually is less than 10 cents.”

Tomato pickers in Florida earn about 47 cents per 32-pound bucket. That can mean an average of about $12 an hour during the picking season for the hardest workers, usually immigrants who receive no health insurance or overtime. If all Florida tomatoes purchasers joined the penny deal, the coalition estimated farmworkers could nearly double their earnings.

Coalition spokeswoman Julia Perkins said with a penny more per pound, pickers would receive between 2.2 cents and 2.4 cents per pound of tomatoes. Still, she said its hard to specify how much pickers paychecks would increased because some growers might not pass along the increase.

“The idea is to get all of the buyers to do this,” she said.

In addition, this years tomato crop is not a good representative of a normal year, she said, due to cold winter weather in Florida that severely damaged the crop.

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The IRS also erroneously issued about $4.7 million in tax credits meant for people who bought plug-in electric cars. The new tax breaks were enacted as part of the massive economic recovery package passed last year.

“Our report concludes that the IRS is having a mixed filing season this year,” George said. “On the one hand, they are having difficulty implementing many of the changes created by the passage of the laws designed to stimulate the economy. On the other hand, the news is not all bad as the IRS is detecting and stopping more erroneous refunds this year.”

The report covers returns processed as of March 5. At the time, the IRS had received about 61 million returns. The agency expects to receive about 140 million individual returns this year.

“Any time you have major tax changes you will see some confusion over it,” said IRS spokesman Terry Lemons. The IRS is doing “everything we can” to work through problems and process returns quickly.

The stimulus package enacted last year presented many challenges for taxpayers and the IRS, making an already complicated tax system even more complex. There were tax credits for qualified families who buy new homes or make energy improvements to existing ones, as well as tax breaks to help pay college tuition or buy new cars.

The Making Work Pay tax credit was President Barack Obamas signature tax break in the package. It provides individuals with up to $400 and couples up to $800.

The homebuyer tax credit was so popular that Congress extended and expanded it in November. Buyers who have owned their current homes at least five years are eligible, subject to income limits, for tax credits of up to $6,500. First-time homebuyers - or people who havent owned homes in the previous three years - can get up to $8,000. To qualify, buyers have to sign purchase agreements before May 1 and close before July 1.

The IRS expects half the people claiming the homebuyer credit not to include proper documentation, such as a settlement statement, and that will delay refunds, according to the report.

As of April 2, the average refund was $2,950, up about $255 over last year, Lemons said. The fastest way to get a refund: file electronically and have the refund deposited directly into a bank account, which takes about 10 days.

Refunds can take six to eight weeks for last-minute filers who use paper returns and receive checks, Lemons said.

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The carmaker issued the temporary “stop sale” within hours after the popular consumer magazine raised the handling problem. It reflects Toyotas attempt to respond more quickly to safety concerns after being castigated by the federal government for dragging its feet on recalls to address faulty gas pedals.

The decision to stop selling the SUV adds another stain to Toyotas safety reputation following the recall of more than 8 million cars and trucks worldwide over gas pedals that are too slow to retract or can become stuck under floor mats. Toyota faces a $16.4 million fine from the Transportation Department and has until April 19 to decide whether to contest the penalty.

The GX 460 is not covered by the pedal recalls.

“We are taking the situation with the GX 460 very seriously and are determined to identify and correct the issue Consumer Reports identified,” said Mark Templin, Lexus vice president and general manager.

Lexus will provide a loaner car for any customer who bought a 2010 GX 460 and is concerned about driving the vehicle, Templin said. Customers who have questions or concerns about the GX 460 can call Lexus at 800-255-3987.

Consumer Reports is closely read by many car buyers before choosing a new car or truck and has raised red flags over Toyotas before. In January, the magazine pulled its “recommended” rating on eight vehicles recalled by the automaker due to faulty gas pedals.

In this case, Consumer Reports said the Lexus problem occurred during tests on its track. In a standard test, the driver approached a turn unusually fast, then released the accelerator pedal to simulate the response of an alarmed driver. This caused the rear of the vehicle to slide outward.

Under normal circumstances, the electronic stability control should quickly correct the loss of control and keep the SUV on its intended path. But with the GX 460, the stability control took too long to adjust, which could cause a rollover accident if one of the sliding wheels were to strike the curb or another obstacle, said Gabriel Shenhar, Consumer Reports senior auto test engineer, one of four testers who experienced the problem.

The magazine said it is not aware of any reports of the GX 460 rolling over. It tested two separate vehicles, both of which experienced the problem, but neither rolled over.

The warning label on the model will remain until Toyota addresses the handling issue with the seven-seat SUV.

Templin said in a statement he was “confident that the GX meets our high safety standards” and said Toyotas engineering teams were testing the GX using Consumer Reports specific parameters.

Consumer Reports said the last vehicle to receive such a safety warning was the 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Limited, a large SUV. In that case, testers said the wheels lifted off the road during standard avoidance-maneuver tests, which also posed a rollover risk.

—

Strumpf reported from New York.

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At issue is how much power farmers have as they produce cattle, hogs and chickens for large companies such as JBS SA, Smithfield Farms and Tyson Foods. The new rules will govern how meatpackers buy their cattle on an open market and what demands poultry companies can make on the independent contractors who raise their chickens.

“We have high hopes for them,” said Mike Weaver, a West Virginia poultry farmer who raises chickens under contract for Pilgrims Pride. “Weve been promised that there will be sweeping changes in these new rules, but nobodys seen them.”

The 2008 Farm Bill required updated rules but left the specifics to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Farm state lawmakers such as Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had long been concerned a lack of competition among meat companies was driving down prices farmers were paid for their cattle and poultry.

Just four companies buy and slaughter 80 percent of all U.S. beef, limiting competition in the meat industry. Meanwhile, big poultry companies dictate chicken prices and can demand farmers take on debt to upgrade their chicken houses for the companies benefit.

Farmers such as Weaver, who has met with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, think the new leaders in the USDAs antitrust division will push for tougher and more far-reaching regulations than previous administrations. Some believe the new rules could be the strongest antitrust protections imposed since the Great Depression.

Theres also a risk they will drive up the cost of meat, eating into meatpackers profits or pushing up prices at grocery stores if companies pass on the expense.

The USDA wouldnt say when its proposed rules will be released, but the Farm Bill requires new regulations be in place by this summer. The bill lays out a broad outline of what the rules must address, but the all-important details wont be known until a proposal becomes public.

The regulations come at a time when the Obama administration has begun a series of meetings across the country to examine competition in agriculture. Officials with the Agriculture and Justice Departments, who are conducting the hearings, have said they dont know what kind of action could result, but its clear the meat industry is under more scrutiny than it has been for years.

Among issues expected to be addressed in the new rules is when its illegal for companies to choose one producers cattle or hogs over anothers.

Ranchers have complained that meatpackers make their choices with an aim toward keeping prices low. For example, meatpackers might pass by independent ranchers to buy cattle raised under contracts that guarantee processors a lower price.

Iowa hog farmer Chuck Wirtz is torn about the rules. He sells most of his hogs on the open market and feels squeezed by big meatpackers. At the same time, he wouldnt want the rules to restrict the market too much.

Wirtz is worried the new rule could say such a deal is illegal if another farmer is passed over.

Such details have been worked over for months within the obscure USDA agency that regulates competition in the meat industry, called the Packers and Stockyards Administration. The PSA was formed in 1921 to limit the power of big meatpackers that dominated the industry.

Ranchers have long criticized the agency as toothless. A 2006 government report said the agency was slow to bring cases and understaffed. But some hope it will be tougher under the direction of its new administrator, Dudley Butler, a lawyer who specialized in suing poultry companies.

Butler declined to comment on the rules.

The new rules also would determine when poultry companies could require farmers to take out additional loans and improve chicken houses by adding new equipment. Farmers resist the investments because although they might earn more money after the upgrades, the extra income doesnt offset the extra debt and cost of operating the houses.

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To foster the recovery, Bernanke and other Fed officials have repeatedly pledged to hold interest rates at record lows for an “extended period.” The hope is that low rates will entice people and businesses to spend more, generating enough economic activity to help keep the recovery going.

But Bernanke is likely to warn again that the pace of the recovery will be sluggish because Americans still face formidable headwinds: high unemployment, stagnant wages, weak home values, rising foreclosures and hard-to-get credit.

The Fed chief will offer his latest assessment on the economy when he appears before Congress Joint Economic Committee. Hell be under more pressure than usual. Its an election year for lawmakers, whose constituents - including individuals and small businesses - are anxious about their financial prospects.

The economy started growing again in the third quarter of last year, after a record four straight losing quarters. And, more recently, the economy started to finally create jobs - 162,000 of them in March, the most in three years. Nonetheless, the unemployment rate has been stuck at 9.7 percent for three straight months - close to its highest levels since the early 1980s.

Many private economists say it will take at least until the middle of this decade for the jobless rate to drop to a more normal 5.5 percent to 6 percent. Recoveries after financial crises tend to be more subdued as some credit problems linger.

With the worst over, though, the Fed has dismantled most of its special lending programs set up during the crisis. And, the Fed ended last month a $1.25 trillion mortgage-buying program that lowered mortgage rates and bolstered home sales.

At some point when the recovery is firmly entrenched, the Fed will need to start boosting rates to prevent any inflation problems.

The soonest the Federal Reserve will begin raising short-term interest rates is the fourth quarter, according to 34 of the 44 economists polled in a new AP Economy Survey that debuted on Monday.

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WaMus pay system rewarded loan officers for the volume and speed of the subprime mortgage loans they closed on. Extra bonuses even went to loan officers who overcharged borrowers on their loans or levied stiff penalties for prepayment, according to the report being released by the investigative panel of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Testifying at a hearing of the subcommittee Tuesday are former Washington Mutual CEO Kerry Killinger, ex-President and Chief Operating Officer Stephen Rotella, and David Schneider, who was the highest-ranking executive in the banks home lending operation. Two former chief risk officers and an internal auditor are also due to appear.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the subcommittee chairman, said Monday the panel wont decide until after the hearings on Tuesday and Friday whether to make a formal referral to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. Justice, the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission opened investigations into Washington Mutual soon after its collapse in the fall of 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.

The new report by the Senate investigators said the top WaMu producers, loan officers and sales executives who made high-risk loans or packaged them into securities for sale to Wall Street, were eligible for the banks Presidents Club, with trips to swank resorts - like Maui in 2005.

Fueled by the housing boom, Seattle-based Washington Mutuals sales to investors of packaged subprime mortgage securities leapt from $2.5 billion in 2000 to $29 billion in 2006. The 119-year-old thrift, with $307 billion in assets, failed in September 2008. It was sold for $1.9 billion to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a deal brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

WaMu was one of the biggest makers of so-called “option ARM” mortgages, which allowed borrowers to make payments so low that loan debt actually increased every month.

The Senate subcommittee investigated the Washington Mutual failure for a year and a half. It focused on the thrift as a case study for the financial crisis that brought the recession and the loss of jobs or homes for millions of Americans.

Senior executives of the bank were aware of the prevalence of fraud, the Senate investigators found.

Washington Mutual “was one of the worst,” Levin told reporters Monday. “This was a Main Street bank that got taken in by these Wall Street profits that were offered to it.”

The investors who bought the mortgage securities from Washington Mutual werent informed of the fraudulent practices, the Senate investigators found. WaMu “dumped the polluted water” of toxic mortgage securities into the stream of the U.S. financial system, Levin said.

In some cases, sales associates in WaMu offices in California fabricated loan documents, cutting and pasting false names on borrowers bank statements. The companys own probe in 2005, three years before the bank collapsed, found that two top producing offices - in Downey and Montebello, Calif. - had levels of fraud exceeding 58 percent and 83 percent of the loans. Employees violated the banks policies on verifying borrowers qualifications and reviewing loans.

Washington Mutual was repeatedly criticized over the years by its internal auditors and federal regulators for sloppy lending that resulted in high default rates by borrowers, according to the report. Violations were so serious that in 2007, Washington Mutual closed its big affiliate Long Beach Mortgage Co. as a separate entity and took over its subprime lending operations.

In late 2006, Washington Mutuals primary regulator, the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision, allowed the bank an additional year to comply with new, stricter guidelines for issuing subprime loans.

According to an internal bank e-mail cited in the report, Washington Mutual would have lost about a third of the volume of its subprime loans if it applied the stricter requirements.

Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, declined to comment Monday on the subcommittee report.

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On Monday, judges awarded the nonprofit ProPublica, in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine, a Pulitzer in investigative reporting for a 13,000-word story on the life-and-death decisions made by New Orleans doctors during Hurricane Katrina.

“It is a validation,” said Stephen Engelberg, managing editor for the more than two-year-old ProPublica thats based in Manhattan and has only 32 employees. “To be recognized by your peers is an honor and it sort of says to the rest of the group: “Yes, theyre here. Theyre real. They are doing very serious journalism.”

ProPublica is bankrolled by charitable foundations, staffed by veteran journalists, and devoted to doing the kind of investigative journalism projects many newspapers have found too expensive. It offers many of its stories to traditional news organizations, free of charge.

Also representing a new model was the prize for editorial cartooning, which was won by the self-syndicated Mark Fiore. His work appears on the San Francisco Chronicle Web site SFGate.com. Matt Wuerker of Politico was a finalist for the cartooning award.

Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Poynter Institute, a journalism school, said those organizations dont need a Pulitzer to somehow feel that their work is more validated.

“But its a neat thing to have,” he said.

The Pulitzers are regarded as the most prestigious awards in U.S. journalism and are given out annually by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of distinguished journalists and others. Each Pulitzer carries a $10,000 prize, except for the public service award, which is a gold medal.

The Bristol Herald Courier, a small paper in the coalfields of Appalachia, beat out journalisms powerhouses to win the Pulitzer Prize for public service for uncovering a scandal in which Virginia landowners were deprived of millions in natural gas royalties.

The Washington Post received four Pulitzers - for international reporting on Iraq, feature writing, commentary and criticism. The New York Times won three - for national reporting, for explanatory reporting and for investigative reporting. The paper collaborated with ProPublica on the Hurricane Katrina story which was published in the magazine.

The Pulitzer Board also recognized the way newspapers are branching out with new media. The Seattle Times employed Twitter and e-mail alerts to help inform readers about a deadly shooting, and used the social media tool Google Wave to encourage reader participation.

A prize for investigative reporting also went to the Philadelphia Daily News for exposing a rogue police narcotics squad. The reporting led to an FBI investigation and the re-examination of hundreds of criminal cases.

The Pulitzer for local reporting went to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a series of stories on fraud and abuse in a child-care program for poor working parents.

The Dallas Morning News won for editorial writing.

The Des Moines Register won for breaking-news photography for capturing a rescuer trying to save a woman trapped beneath a dam, and the Denver Post was honored for feature photography for a portrait of a teenager who joined the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq.

“Next to Normal,” a musical about the complexity and heartbreak of a womans mental illness and its effect on her family, has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Paul Hardings “Tinkers,” a debut novel released by the tiny Bellevue Literary Press, was the surprise fiction winner.

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And, a quarter of homeowners who want to sell their current home and buy another say they need to make the move in order to lower their monthly expenses due to financial problems.

The survey, conducted for Move Inc., found wide-ranging concerns about the financial condition of homeowners in a challenging economy, but also unearthed evidence of increased demand among investors in residential real estate.

“Concerns around employment and their overall economic situation are causing many people to wait until the economy improves before they commit to one of the largest purchases theyll most likely make in their lives,” said Errol Samuelson, chief revenue officer for Move, which runs the Realtor.com and Move.com Web sites.

A stronger housing market will be an important part of the nations economic recovery. As home sales and prices rise, consumer optimism usually follows suit, leading homeowners to feel wealthier and make them more comfortable spending.

Despite economic concerns, investor interest in the housing market is growing, according to the survey.

About 17 percent of potential home buyers say they plan to purchase a home in the near future as an investment. Thats three times the investor interest seen in March 2009.

Also, investor interest in purchasing a foreclosed property to fix up and resell rose from 11.3 percent in October 2009 to 16 percent in March, a 42 percent increase.

Strong demand persists among first time homebuyers, the survey showed.

One in five consumers say they plan to purchase a home in the next 12 months to five years. Of those, half are first-time buyers, with men being somewhat more interested in entering the housing market as a first-time buyer than women.

First-time buyers have until April 30 to sign a contract for a home purchase and qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000.

The telephone poll, which included 1,004 interviews, was conducted in March by GfK Custom Research North America. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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Five Southeast Asian economies that contracted last year - Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and Brunei - also are set to return to growth, together with Hong Kong, Mongolia and Taiwan, the bank said in its economic outlook.

In 2011, GDP growth across the region is seen easing back to 7.3 percent.

Investment is expected to remain strong and private consumption improve as projected growth this year and next lifts domestic demand, boosting consumer price inflation to about 4 percent, the bank said.

The fragile recovery still could be derailed by a premature withdrawal of stimulus, a sharp rise in commodity prices, persistent global financial imbalances and deteriorating debt positions in some countries, said ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda.

Asias recovery is attracting large capital flows, the perils of which were made clear in the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, he said.

“Volatile capital flows could again have serious implications for exchange rates and money supply,” Kuroda said.

“As it exits the worst effects of this crisis, therefore, developing Asia must remain faithful to its tradition of sound and responsible fiscal and monetary policies,” he said.

The bank proposed monetary, exchange rate and fiscal policies to enable the region to adapt to the post-crisis world. It said that while price stability is the overriding objective, there needs to be better coordination between fiscal regulation and monetary policy to avert a homegrown financial crisis.

“After all, the combination of lax monetary policy and inadequate financial regulation contributed to inflating the U.S. housing market bubble that the immediate catalyst of the global financial crisis,” the bank said.

Excessive foreign exchange market intervention should be reduced in favor of greater flexibility, and capital controls could help guard against foreign exchange volatility, it said.

Developing Asia refers to 44 countries and territories from the Pacific to Central Asia, excluding Japan.

On the Net:

Asian Development Bank: http://www.adb.org

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