ELF News Archives
February 2005- Social Security this Week - Feb 28 -
SSA: Johnson Bill Achieves Permanent Sustainable Solvency; Leading Economists: There Is No Transition Cost; Tim
Penny: Status Quo Is an Expensive Proposition
Cato Institute 2/28
- Suddenly Going Sane -
Social Security? A forensic accountant could pore over the books for 1,000 years and never find a trace of the cash supposed stashed away for Americans' retirement. It doesn't exist!
Lew Rockwell 2/24
- Marijuana may block Alzheimer's -
Scientists showed a synthetic version of the compound may reduce inflammation associated with Alzheimer's and thus help to prevent mental decline.
BBC 2/24
- Social Security Reform: A Free-Market Alternative -
2018 is in fact the time when the difficulties will begin. The reason is that the government securities held by the Social Security system are not any kind of actual asset. They are a claim against the US Government to pay money that it does not possess and which it cannot obtain in any way other than by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or inflating the money supply.
Ludwig Von Mises 2/23
- $1.5 Billion Medicare Cut for Skilled Nursing Care Jeopardizes Quality Gains -
Continuing to make its case opposing the proposed $1.5 billion Medicare cut for skilled nursing care in the Bush Administration FY 2006 budget -- which amounts to $24 billion over ten years -- the American Health Care Association (AHCA) urged members of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Administration to stop the disproportionate cuts in light of the fact that Administration officials acknowledge the correlation between funding adequacy and care quality.
AHCA 2/22
- New age for early retirement weighed -
With President Bush and Congress looking for ways to close a projected Social Security funding shortfall of trillions of dollars, one option is to delay the early-retirement age, now 62, when people can begin taking benefits.
Myrtle Beach Online 2/22
- Social Security causes debates -
Privately investing in Social Security allows citizens to have a greater say in their retirement, not solely receiving what the government gives them for their years of labor.
"People should have a say, they earned it, they sacrificed for it, they got out of bed every morning for 50 years,"
Colorado State Collegian 2/22
- 2042? -
The Social Security system has no trust fund. No lock box. When you pay your payroll tax every year, the money is not converted into gold bars and shipped to some desert island, ready for retrieval when you turn 65. The system is pay-as-you-go. The money goes to support that year's Social Security recipients. What's left over is ``loaned'' to the federal Treasury. And gets entirely spent. It vanishes.
Town Hall 2/18
- Beyond the nursing home -
In the long run, making more Hoosiers eligible for home health care will be good for them and, perhaps, good for the state’s finances, too.
Fort Wayne News Sentinel 2/17
- Myth illogical
-
The AARP claims to represent us seniors, but more often it just lectures us relentlessly. One such sermon in the AARP Bulletin, opposing any addition of choice and ownership to Social Security
Town Hall 2/17
- Bush's budget -- the welfare state lives -
...the three biggest entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- remain, without dramatic changes, on automatic pilot. But did the Founding Fathers ever intend for the federal government to involve itself in education, health care or retirement benefits? The answer, quite clearly, is no. The Constitution, in Article I, Section 8 -- which contains the "general welfare clause" -- seeks to restrain federal government, not expand it. Section 8 begins, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States," and then goes on to specify these powers.
Town Hall 2/17
- 'Ham and Eggs' Pension Plan Promised $30 a Week in '30s -
FDR wasn't the only one who wanted to end destitution among the elderly. Even after Social Security became law, about 80 old-age pension proposals competed for support in California alone. The most prominent and sensational became known as "Ham and Eggs."
LA Times 2/15
- Transforming moral problems into politics -
Personal accounts would allow ownership and wealth creation. If we had to start from scratch, no one would want the system we now have. If the case is so clear, why isn't it simple to change?
Town Hall 2/15
- Break free from tax-eating Granny -
On his election on Saturday as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the former candidate for his party's presidential nomination swore that the Democrats were "the party for young Americans" and the "party for older Americans".
Town Hall 2/15
- Consumer confidence drops on Social Security news -
Consumers' confidence has fallen dramatically over the past month, reaching a 16-month low, and economists say the political debate over revamping Social Security probably is a major factor in the decline.
Houston Chronicle 2/14
- Start saving early and the Social Security -
Remember, no one is trustworthy on the subject. You cannot confidently trust one word that comes out of the mouth of the president of the United States. You cannot confidently trust one word that comes from the mouths of the Democratic opposition. Both sides have clearly demonstrated that they will say anything to get their way. So ignore them.
Herald-Mail 2/14
- Court Appearance for Man Accused In Nursing Home Attack -
Thirty-year-old Mustafa Mohamed of Alexandria faces two counts of malicious wounding and other charges in the attacks that left three women residents over the age of 90 hospitalized, along with a 40-year-old woman who worked at Goodwin House and a man who was visiting.
ABC News 2/14
- Nursing home residents caught in middle of bed tax battle -
Socialist tax system places Quality of Life at Risk: A battle between state and federal governments over a bed tax is putting nursing home residents in the middle.
ABC News 2/14
- As Baby Boomers and Their Parents Age, Law Firms Prepare for Increase in Nursing Home Negligence Cases -
The parents of Baby Boomers are now filling nursing homes in record numbers. According to the 1997 National Nursing Home Survey, there were 1,465,000 residents 65 and older in nursing homes.
Yahoo News 2/14
- Sex offender, 68 years old, charged in nursing home rape -
John A. Enos, 68, was arrested Monday night at the nursing home and ordered held on $10,000 cash bail at his arraignment Tuesday in Dedham District Court. He is accused of raping an older male resident, police said.
Boston Herald 2/10
- Medicare price tag storm rages on -
The 10-year score of $724 billion was provided to media outlets Tuesday evening, triggering front-page news in The Washington Post, The New York Times and other newspapers.
The Hill 2/10
- Bush sets sights on Medicare next -
"There's no question that there is an unfunded liability inherent in Medicare that Congress and the administration is going to have to deal with over time,"
Washington Times 2/10
- Social Security Is Hopelessly Broken -
Most Americans have a mistaken belief that they have earned their Social Security benefits by their payroll tax contributions into the Social Security system during their working years. This is a sever misconception.
Mens News Daily 2/09
- Social Security in the U.S. and Other Nations -
It's pay-as-you-go services for German retirees; private accounts for Great Britain's elderly -- and retirement in Chile is fully privatized. We look at what the United States can learn about social security from other nations.
NPR 2/09
- Bush political skills tested by budget, Social Security -
The real problem revolves around Social Security and the president's desire to create a private-investment option for future beneficiaries. Despite a series of heartland trips to generate support for the plan that would permit workers to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into government-approved investment plans, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Tuesday showed that 55 percent of Americans consider it "a bad idea."
KnoxStudio 2/09
- What does Freedom Really Mean? -
Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion.
Representative Ron Paul 2/07
- The Trouble With Health Savings Accounts -
In October 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law a congressional act authorizing health savings accounts. Is this a good law? Should individuals take advantage of it?
Thomas Dorman, MD, edits Fact, Fiction, & Fraud in Modern Medicine 2/05
- Sizing Up Social Security -
...today's goods and services cannot be stored for the benefit of tomorrow's seniors and so the future workforce will have to provide them afresh, but what you seem to have overlooked is that, by saving now – that is by cutting back on present consumption in favour of accumulating physical capital – tomorrow's workers could be made immeasurably more productive (in a real, not a BLS-hedonized, Fed-fudged sense) as a direct result.
Increasing the quotient of useful physical capital per head is, after all, the only way lastingly to increase overall prosperity.
The seniors, of course, would then have a valid claim upon some of these goods and services as the beneficial owners of this capital – an ownership which, might I suggest, would be best exercised in a fully private and wholly individual capacity.
Lew Rockwell 2/05
- America’s Socialized Health Care -
Health-care systems in most developed nations are in financial trouble.
Skyrocketing costs are due to the structure of health care in all these nations. All are mainly socialized, including America’s. This means they operate as top-down bureaucracies, out of touch with people’s real needs. Almost no market forces are allowed to operate for rational decision-making and cost control.
fff.org 2/04
- Robbing Peter to Pay Peter -
For politicians who require increased tax revenues as a requirement to maintain and increase their power, Social Security has been a godsend. It has allowed them more money to transfer to the politically important groups that keep them in power. Since Social Security taxes paid into the Treasury have always exceeded Social Security transfers paid out, surplus payroll taxes have allowed the entrenchment of the political class. As readers of the late journalist John Attarian know, this was Franklin Roosevelt's intent from the very beginning.
Ludwig Von Mises.Com 2/04
- Social Security: A fight for the ages -
President Bush's proposal to privatize part of Social Security threatens to open a fissure along generational fault lines.
If you're 55 or over, it's status quo: Your guaranteed benefits wouldn't change under the plan.
If you're in your 20s or 30s, you're more likely to shrug or favor the stocks-and-bonds option, according to polls. You weren't counting on Social Security anyway.
Magic Valley. Com 2/04
- State finds abuse at Gooding nursing home
Abuse and Neglect -
The Gooding Rehab and Living Center has 70 days to clean up its act after a state investigative team found incidents of abuse and neglect of residents by some staff members.
"It involved abuse and neglect by staff
Magic Valley. Com 2/04
- Nursing home owner, union end nasty feud -
Grane has in fact met and exceeded all federal and state standards for nursing home care and continues to do so, according to the statement issued by Kobell's office.
The union agreed to dismantle a Web site critical of Grane and remove disparaging statements and inaccurate statistics about Grane from search engines and other sites.
Post Gazette.com 2/04
- New Coverage Criteria for Medicare -
Medicare’s proposed coverage criteria would rely on clinical guidance for evaluating whether a beneficiary needs a device to assist with mobility, and if so, what type of device is needed. This new approach would replace an older, more rigid standard that relied on whether a patient was “nonambulatory” or “bed or chair confined.”
All American Patriots 2/04
- Fear of falling -
Like millions of seniors, Benoche had taken a nasty fall at home. She broke her hip in the December accident and needed an operation to put pins into the bone. But Benoche also was luckier than many patients, because her injury didn't force her into a nursing home - or worse, kill her.
DailyPress 2/01
- Tax Hike? What Tax Hike? -
Intriguingly, some of the biggest changes the taxation committee report proposes involve payroll taxes--an area that could be in play this year, what with President Bush making a Social Security overhaul a top priority.
Forbes 2/01
- Forsyth Medical Group chosen for Medicare pilot program -
The goal of the study is to find out if physicians, through proactive and coordinate patient care, can improve the health of Medicare patients and reduce health care costs.
The Business Journal 2/01