Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Q: Paragraph: "Explaining why he couldn't support the Texas Senate's version of the 2012-13 state budget, Sen. John Whitmire said he didn't know how state agencies can cope with further budget cuts, singling out the Texas Board of Nursing as an example. ""I asked them for their backlog of investigations,"" he said. ""They've got 3,000 complaints against nurses, many of them sexual assaults, malfeasance."" Time to crank up the Truth-O-Meter, starting with the board's unresolved complaints. Some background: The board investigates and adjudicates complaints about Texas nurses who could be violating the Nursing Practice Act, which imposes regulations on nursing education, licensing and practices in the state including rules against unnecessarily exposing patients to the risk of harm or failing to adequately care for them. At the nursing board, spokesman Bruce Holter told us the senator's count of 3,000 backlogged complaints is too low, accounting solely for unresolved cases from fiscal years 2009 and 2010. In 2010, the board resolved 14,429 of 16,890 complaints filed against nurses, leaving 2,461 unresolved cases. As of this March, another 511 complaints filed in 2009 remained unresolved, bringing the total backlog to nearly 3,000. There also are several hundred lingering complaints dating back to May 2006, board officials said. As of March, the board had about 11,000 open investigations, including the backlog. What are the complaints about? ""In general,"" Holter said, ""criminal conduct, drug-related conduct and failure to follow the minimum standard of care are the main types of complaints."" That covers malfeasance. But what about Whitmire's other charge that a chunk of the backlogged cases are sexual assault complaints? Lara Wendler, Whitmire's chief of staff, told us the senator based his statement on conversations with administrators at agencies, including the nursing board. She added, though, that Whitmire was referring to all regulatory agencies, not just the nursing board, when he said backlogged cases included ""many"" sexual assaults. That was not clear from Whitmire's floor remarks. Holter said the board checks all nurses licensed in Texas against state and national databases identifying sex offenders. Currently, the board is investigating complaints against four nurses who appear on the Texas Department of Public Safety's sex offender database, and 12 nurses who appear on a national sex offender registry kept by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. ""Sexual assault complaints against nurses make up a small percentage of the overall number of complaints investigated by the board,"" Holter said. But he added that other than the nurses found on the sexual offender databases, ""it would be difficult for staff to 'pin down' the number of complaints involving sexual assault."" Why? The board doesn't categorize complaints by type, though when disciplinary action has been taken, Holter said, the board can run a data mining program to identify specific rule violations. But because the board doesn't track the number of sexual assault cases, it would have to review each resolved complaint individually. Lastly, why have complaints stacked up? Board employees are barred from discussing the details of individual complaints, but the board's general counsel Dusty Johnston told us that generally, complaints don't get resolved for a variety of reasons. He offered several examples: The investigator may be under-performing; extensive due process is required; the medical records of the patient involved in the complaint are difficult to obtain. So, the board says it has about 3,000 backlogged complaints, as Whitmire said. According to the board, many of the complaints allege malfeasance by nurses, as Whitmire also said, and a smaller number involve sexual assaults. But no one can determine the precise breakout without access to confidential board information." Claim: "John Whitmire Says the Texas Board of Nursing has a backlog of ""3,000 complaints against nurses, many of them sexual assaults, malfeasance."

A: State Sen. John Whitmire says the Texas Board of Nursing has a backlog of 3,000 complaints, including many cases of sexual assault and malfeasance
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Q: Paragraph: KTWO-AM reports Carbon County School District No. 2 canceled classes Thursday at the elementary schools in Hanna, Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow, as well as the high school in Hanna. Classes will resume Monday after the campuses are disinfected. Kim Deti, a spokeswoman for the Wyoming Department of Health, says meningitis has not yet been confirmed and there is no public health threat. Superintendent Jim Copeland says student involved attends Hanna Elementary, and the other schools were closed as a precaution. The child has since been hospitalized. Meningitis is an infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. ___ This story has been updated to correct that meningitis has not been confirmed. ___ Information from: KTWO-AM, http://www.k2radio.com/ Claim: 4 Wyoming schools close after possible meningitis case.

A: A school district in southern Wyoming has closed four of its campuses over fears that a fourth-grade student might have contracted bacterial meningitis.
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Q: Paragraph: "Even after all the hollering over health care reform, average citizens remain confused over how the bill will change their lives. Among them are retirees, a powerful voting bloc, which means Democrats who pushed for the reform have some explaining to do. How do they convince them that they have their best interests in mind? Enter Georgia's Democratic Party, whose chair Jane Kidd wrote a column to address these concerns. That opinion piece was e-mailed to the press. Thanks to health care reform, the op-ed said, seniors will get free services that can help keep them healthy. She wrote: ""For example, while seniors today must pay for preventative care, health reform eliminates co-pays, deductibles, and other costs for preventative care and provides for free annual wellness checkups starting next year ensuring that every Georgia senior has the care they need to better maintain their health.""Free? Is this too good to be true? To back up their claim, Georgia's Democrats referred us to an article in The Record newspaper of Troy, N.Y., that cited the AARP. It states that ""many preventative services . . . will now be free for Medicare beneficiaries, and they won't have to shell out co-pays for those services."" They also sent an article from CNN.com that said, ""Medicare will provide free annual wellness visits and personalized prevention plans starting in 2011,"" and a fact sheet from WhiteHouse.gov that said the same thing. We called the AARP, a group known for its extensive research on issues that affect seniors. They confirmed that seniors who have Medicare will receive annual wellness visits and personalized prevention plans starting in 2011.These benefits were established by Title IV of the massive health care overhaul bill, dubbed ""Prevention of Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health."" By 2010, Medicare recipients will receive free ""annual wellness visits"" from their health care providers. The checkup will include the creation of a personal prevention plan and a schedule of recommended health screenings for the next five to 10 years, the bill states. Since the AARP took sides on the issue, we sought additional verification. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government agency that administers these programs, confirmed the AARP account and gave some additional information. There is some question about whether members of Medicare Advantage plans -- the privately managed plans that operate under the Medicare umbrella -- will also receive these wellness visits for free. A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said federal law requires that Medicare Advantage plans provide, at a minimum, the services included in Medicare. So by 2011, these plans will also have to provide wellness visits without charge. Generally speaking, the health care law has several provisions that attempt to change Medicare so that it pays for good outcomes instead of paying per procedure, a system known as ""fee for service."" The free preventive care is part of that overall philosophy.Tests such as cancer screenings that are already free under Medicare will remain so, and additional tests may also be included, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said. Still, we at PolitiFact Georgia remained dubious. Is there no provision that will make seniors pay for the ""free"" preventive services in an indirect way? Well there's free. And then there's ""free."" It's free if you paid your Medicare taxes, and make below a certain income. Over time, higher-income seniors will find that their overall Medicare costs increase, according to tax expert Howard Gleckman, a resident fellow at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, Joseph Antos, a health policy expert with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a nonpartisan think tank with conservative roots, and a PolitiFact Georgia review of the legislation.Under the current system, recipients with individual incomes of $85,000 or family incomes of $170,000 pay higher premiums to receive coverage. Under the new system, the pool of people who pay this bigger bill will gradually increase because the income thresholds will not be adjusted for inflation until 2019,according to Section 3402 of the legislation. For those who cross the threshold, this could mean an increase of roughly $50 a month, Antos said. All taxpayers, including seniors, who make more than $200,000 individually or $250,000 as a family will pay more in payroll taxes under Section 9015 of the bill. Also, seniors who like to work on their tans -- whoever you are -- should watch out. Indoor tanning salons will have to pay an excise tax under the new law. That cost will likely be passed on to customers, Gleckman said. But the overwhelming majority of retired seniors will find that free preventive services are just that. Free." Claim: Health reform eliminates co-pays, deductibles, and other costs for preventative care and provides for free annual wellness checkups starting next year.

A:
Health care changes give seniors free checkups, Democrats said
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