ELF News Archives
July 2003- Social Security Seen as a Winning Issue -
In a recent article for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Hugh Newton cites the election 2002 successes of candidates that devoutly supported Social Security reform against multimillion-dollar attack ads that failed in campaign after campaign.
Cato Institute 07/31
- Family of patient sues city nursing home -
Relatives of a woman who was fed to death in a city nursing home have filed a lawsuit in Baltimore Circuit Court charging the home's owners with malpractice, wrongful death and then with trying to cover up their errors.
Baltimore Sun 07/31
- Medicare Talks Moving Slowly -
A month after Congress adopted bills to transform Medicare, negotiators trying to weld House and Senate versions of the legislation have made slim progress in resolving their differences about the future of the nation's health insurance for the elderly.
Washington Post 07/28
- For elderly, a little slip can be last -
Falls: A researcher looks at why a seemingly minor tumble can be deadly to the aging body.
Baltimore Sun 07/28
- Bipartisan Group Calls for "Ceasefire" on Social Security Reform -
Social Security .org 07/25
- Quality of Life Before Entitlements -
Whenever someone says that this or that government program is absolutely necessary, I always wonder, "What did people do and how did they survive before the program?"
TownHall 07/24
- Social Security ceasefire (Congress loosing courage on quality of Life)-
Sen. Lindsey Graham, the aggressive freshman Republican from South Carolina,...began circulating among senators and House members of both parties a letter that is intended to radically reduce violence in the bitter Social Security wars.
TownHall 07/21
- Medicare Reform: Will the House-Senate Conference Committee Save It or Sink It? -
“Medicare Bill Has House Conservatives Grumbling,” according to the Washington Post on July 15. Rep. Paul Ryan, who serves on the key committee that drafted most of the House version of Medicare reform, is doing more than “grumbling.”
TownHall 07/21
- Is Social Security the most destructive government program ever devised? -
She will retire soon and Social Security will be her only income. But it won't pay her bills. She will have to sell her home. She will go from independent living to living with her children. I believe the government has impoverished her.
DownsizeDC 07/18
- AARP balks at drug plan -
The nation's largest organization of seniors is threatening to oppose a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare recipients unless its objections are met, a move that could jeopardize action in Congress.
USA Today 07/17
- Validation for Elder LifeCare Foundation Family Web Initiative - Americans log on for health info-
The majority of U.S. adults online — 80% — use the Net to find health information. And most say it helps them get better health care, a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports today.
About 93 million people go to the Net for health information, making health searches the third-most-popular use of the Internet, after e-mail and investigating a product or service before making a purchase, the study says.
USA Today 07/17
- Congress exempts itself from Medicare -
Congress is doing its best to exempt federal retirees, including retired members of Congress, from its Medicare reform bills:
But if the bills are so good for the rest of us, why are lawmakers desperately trying to exempt federal retirees, including retired members of Congress?
National Review 07/15
- Future power of personal accounts -
One economic issue Mr. Bush will run on is reforming Social Security. His plan, which could be the sleeper issue of 2004, would let workers invest part of their payroll taxes to increase their financial resources far beyond what Social Security will pay them.
Washington Times 07/14
- Social Security Privatization Debated -
...if we eliminated some or all of the payroll tax in order to allow workers to put money into their own accounts, then we confront the issue of how to pay current benefits.
The Library of Economic Liberty 07/13
- William Kay: Pensions plan merely postpones ageism to 70 -
No question of compelling us, just giving everyone the choice, all part of complying with a European directive against ageism. Except that we are not going to abolish, but merely postpone ageism: it will begin at 70 instead of 65.
Independent.co.uk 07/11
- Recent Changes to the Chilean System of Individual Accounts -
"Recent Changes to the Chilean System of Individual Accounts," discusses provisions that allow more personal choice and options for the private pension system.
Cato Institute 07/11
- Overhaul of state pensions urged by think-tank -
Britain's state pension system is inadequate and unsustainable, a financial think-tank said yesterday.
Independent.co.uk 07/11
"Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more
glorious the triumph." --Thomas Paine
07/10
- Failing by a Wide Margin: Methods and Findings in the 2003 Social Security Trustees Report -
Contrary to press reports that highlight the extended solvency of the trust fund, former Cato Social Security analyst Andrew Biggs cites the worsened actuarial deficit and increased net annual cash shortfalls in this year's Trustees Report.
Cato Institute 07/11
- AFCM on Drug Plan: A Prescription for Less Freedom, Higher Costs -
"Instead of making their own decisions about the best medications, patients and their doctors will be reduced to seeking permission to use what the government decides to provide," ... "This can only result in what government supplied health care has always produced in the U.S. and elsewhere: shortages, rationing, waiting lists, higher taxes, lower quality, less research and fewer new drugs."
AFMC.org 07/10
- Social Security Reform in Central and Eastern Europe -
After Chile reformed its Social system in 1981, several other Latin American countries and certain Central and Eastern European countries implemented the Chilean model...
Cato Institute 07/10
- How to fulfil your retirement dream -
EXPERTS warned last week that government plans to outlaw age discrimination could wreck the retirement hopes of millions of people.
London Times 07/09
- The retirement waiting game -
MILLIONS of older people are to be given greater employment rights under proposals designed to banish age discrimination from the workplace. The measures, announced by the Department of Trade and Industry this week, will allow people to remain in work beyond the age of 65.
London Times 07/09
- Medicare drug program faces two key hurdles -
As the House and Senate begin negotiations this month to create a Medicare prescription-drug benefit, two key hurdles will be how much wealthy seniors should benefit and whether the program should compete with private health care plans.
Washington Times 07/09
- Free enterprise, capitalists, and Medicare -
In The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote that the interests of businessmen and the public were almost always in conflict. The former wants to limit competition, while the latter benefits from an increase in it. "To narrow competition," Smith said, "can only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow citizens."
Town Hall 07/08
- Medicare drug program faces two key hurdles -
As the House and Senate begin negotiations this month to create a Medicare prescription-drug benefit, two key hurdles will be how much wealthy seniors should benefit and whether the program should compete with private health care plans.
Washington Times 07/07
- Both parties play for seniors; neither gets it right -
Why is Congress committing to Medicare reform now, after six years of stalemate? It has everything to do with the upcoming election.
Town Hall 07/07
- Signing any health bill -
As Congress reconvenes this week, conservatives are pushing a scenario that makes the best of inevitable prescription drug subsidies: The Senate-House conference would retain the House bill's market elements.
Town Hall 07/07
- Racial difference with feeding tube use -
The study, which surveyed 186,000 residents in all 15,135 licensed nursing homes in the country, sheds light on a debate among the operators of nursing homes and advocates for the aged over whether it is more humane or more sensible to put dying patients on feeding tubes.
Washington Times 07/03
- Older and wiser -The wrong way to combat ageism
Anthony Powell once lamented that “growing old is like being increasingly penalised for a crime you haven’t committed”. Many of those who have experienced the British labour market will sympathise with such sentiments.
London Times 07/03
- Medicare: More False Promises -
The first thing to remember is that the Medicare Trust Fund now stands at $277 billion and is in the same shape as the Social Security Trust Funds—no money, just debt markers. It is currently 4.3 percent of the national debt.
Sierra Times 07/02
- Caregivers face getting sick themselves -
The stress of caring for an Alzheimer's patient at home can prematurely age the immune system, putting caregivers at risk of developing a raft of age-related diseases, a study reports Tuesday.
USA Today 07/01