ELF News Archives
June 2003- Medicare Rx Reform:
The Road to Medical Serfdom -
...it appears Congress likely will pass and President Bush will sign a bill to help Medicare participants obtain medicine by subsidizing their purchase of private prescription-drug coverage or their enrollment in managed care.
Institute for Health Freedom 06/30
- House, Senate pass broad Medicare bill -
Medicare prescription drug legislation eased through the Senate and squeaked through the House early Friday, setting up challenging negotiations on a final compromise that President Bush hopes to sign later this summer.
USA Today 06/27
- Bad medicine -
The Senate's "mad rush to drug-ment" could turn out as a replay of the 1988 fiasco that produced the short-lived Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act (MCCA).
Washington Times 06/26
- Social security imbalance sheet -
...in a little noticed study on the financing alternatives needed to keep the nation's largest retirement fund solvent, CBO clearly embraced Bush's plan to let individuals invest part of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds instead of the governnment.
Washington Times 06/26
- Entitlements have history of cost overruns -
Adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare will cost many times its estimated $400 billion price tag for the next decade, judging from past growth in health care entitlement programs.
Washington Times 06/26
- Intrusive health care -
The health insurance industry would have access to the income data of every senior citizen in America.
Town Hall 06/26
- Medicare drug bill troubles conservatives in House
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Conservatives in the House have major concerns about the chamber's Medicare prescription drug bill, expected to come to the floor tomorrow, and some say it would be better to join with Democrats to defeat the measure rather than to pass it as written.
Washington Times 06/25
- Senate Defeats Democrats' Efforts on Drug Benefits -
The Senate yesterday turned back Democratic efforts to expand a proposed prescription drug benefit for elderly Americans and neared agreement on the divisive issue of how far to go in encouraging private health plans to provide Medicare coverage.
Washington Post 06/25
- Need for reform of the state pension -
Sir, Britain had a private, funded, pension market which was the envy of the world. We had a cost-controlled state pension system which made our national finances far stronger than our European partners’. This has all gone in only six years of new Labour government.
London Times 06/24
- Senate, House Debate Medicare Reform -
Debate over improving Medicare began with a tone of bipartisanship in the Senate, but the mood was decidedly less cooperative in the House.
Washington Times 06/23
- White House opposes Senate bill on alien benefits -
The Bush administration yesterday announced it will oppose a part of the Senate's Medicare bill that reverses the 1996 welfare-reform legislation and allows Medicaid to cover legal immigrants who are pregnant women or children.
Washington Times 06/23
- Staying well -
As lawmakers move toward adding a prescription-drug benefit to Medicare, seven former Health and Human Services secretaries want Congress to go one step further.
TownHall 06/20
- CBO Report Blasts Government Investing -
Toomey Continues Social Security Road Show; Ferrara Touts Social Security Plan and more!
Cato Institute 06/20
- GOP embraces plan for drug entitlement -
Now most Republicans in both the House and Senate are backing a new entitlement to prescription drugs as part of a $400 billion, 10-year overhaul of Medicare.
Washington Times 06/13
-Pension Problems Plague Switzerland | Social security spending continues to rise -
Spending on social security is rising at several times the rate of inflation, with latest figures showing the taxpayer forked out SFr120 billion ($91.35 billion) in 2001.
NZZ OnLine 06/13
- Entitlements have history of cost overruns
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President Bush yesterday urged Congress to pass a Medicare reform bill before July Fourth, saying America has "an unprecedented opportunity to give America's seniors an up-to-date Medicare system that includes more choices and better benefits, like prescription drug coverage."
Washington Times 06/12
- Bush pushes Medicare changes -
President Bush yesterday urged Congress to pass a Medicare reform bill before July Fourth, saying America has "an unprecedented opportunity to give America's seniors an up-to-date Medicare system that includes more choices and better benefits, like prescription drug coverage."
Washington Times 06/12
- A Progressive Proposal for Social Security Private Accounts -
A well-designed personal account option for Social Security would be substantial, highly progressive, and would provide a broad array of benefits and advantages for working people across the board, including low-income workers, minorities, and others. But what is needed is a concrete, specific and detailed proposal for reform that delivers on the promise of a true personal account option.
Institute for Policy Innovation 06/12
- Pension and pay woes grip Europe -
Public sector strikes paralysed parts of Europe on Tuesday, causing mayhem in France and Austria and lesser disruption in Germany and Italy.
NZoom.Com 06/04
- Ageing gracefully -
For decades, a pan-European pension has been an impossible dream. It is still little more than a distant hope, despite recent progress.
CFOEurope.Com 06/04
- Analysis finds clusters of nursing home violations -
Where a nursing home is and who owns it can be critical in determining the care given to America's most frail and vulnerable, a Gannett News Service investigation has found.
USA Today 06/03
- Seniors ignore the bad and ugly, study says -
A new study confirms that the older we get, the better we become at filtering out the annoyances of life and finding emotional contentment. It is, as the old 1944 swing tune put it, a true case of "accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative."
Washington Times 06/03