ELF News Archives
October 2003- President Calls on Congress to Complete Work on Medicare Bill -
Prescription drug coverage for our seniors is within reach. Expanded coverage for preventive medicine and therapy is within our reach. More health care choices for seniors are within our reach.
The White House 10/31
- Energy, Medicare Bills Caught in Republican Spat -
If Democrats and Republicans were at loggerheads, the dispute could be attributed to partisan politics. But this standoff involves stalwart Republicans and two of Congress's ablest legislators.
Washington Post 10/30
- Socialists Stage Resistance - Democrats Assail Medicare Proposals -
Proponents of that competitive arrangement, known as premium support, say that it would encourage people to join private health plans and drive down costs; critics predict it would end up costing more for patients who remain in the traditional fee-for-service program, which now includes nearly 90 percent of the 40 million elderly and disabled Americans in Medicare.
Washington Post 10/28
- Social Security Actuaries: Raising the Cap is Not a Permanent Solution -
The Social Security Administration this week published a memorandum on an analysis on the effects of increasing the maximum taxable Social Security wage tax.
Cato Institute 10/27
- Problems Same in All Socialist Countries - Whom Can You Trust With Your Pension? -
As they approach the legal retirement age, most working stiffs get a little antsy and start bustling from office to office securing all the documents they will need to start collecting their pensions when the time comes.
Moscow Times 10/27
- The doctor won't see you now -
The report revealed that two-thirds of the doctors in America are thinking of retiring early. Most want out, it said, because of "increased government interference" and "increased hassles with Medicare."
Washington Times 10/27
- Social insecurity -
Last week, the Social Security Administration announced that beneficiaries will receive a 2.1 percent cost-of-living increase next year, providing an extra $19 a month for the typical retiree. For 2002, the increase was 1.4 percent.
Washington Times 10/24
- A Helping Hand For Caregivers -
Your dad's loss of initiative may not necessarily mean he's developing dementia; he could just have a B12 vitamin deficiency.
Washington Post 10/24
- The Forgotten Payroll Tax -
...according to the Congressional Budget Office, 42% of American families are paying more in payroll taxes—taxes that go to pay for Social Security and Medicare—than they pay in income tax. And here, once again, is another source of confusion about payroll taxes.
The 42% figure doesn't include the amount that your employer pays on your behalf. So when public officials quote the 7.65% rates for the system they are either ill informed or deceptive. (Actually, either one is a good bet. Nevertheless, since most pols are Social Security shills, my money—or the measly amount that remains after Uncle Whiskers has picked my pockets—is on the latter). When the employer paid portion of the tax is added, then the percentage of American households that pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes is 74%.
Ludwig Von Mises Institute 10/21
- Making Social Security a Money Machine -
"Saving social security" will be a sizzling campaign issue next year. Instead of trying to preserve FDR's brainchild, why not transform it into something that enriches the economy and significantly expands retirement benefits? The Bush Administration will probably propose, as it has in the past, allowing workers to allocate a small portion of their Social Security tax to their own personal savings accounts. Democrats will bellow that this will destroy the program, and they will advocate more taxes on the "rich."
Forbes.Com 10/20
- CBO Warns on Social Security Solvency -
"That combined figure shows the amount by which payroll taxes would have to increase today to cover the gap … Social Security and HI are funded by $15.30 out of every hundred dollars of the earnings of most workers.
"Crediting surpluses to trust funds is simply a paper transaction. When funds are needed to pay benefits, resources will have to be drawn from the economy. Crediting surpluses to the trust funds will not necessarily create those resources because the surpluses may be used to boost spending on other federal programs or allow other revenues to be lower …
Cato Institute 10/20
- Lawsuit Abuse: Patients Are Paying The Price -
Hospitals, nursing homes, and health insurers have seen their costs escalate as a result of lawsuit abuse. According to one recent study, approximately $50 billion per year is spent on defensive medicine - tests, procedures, and paperwork practiced solely for litigation avoidance.
Sick of Lawsuits 10/16
- LPaying Dearly for Free Prescription Drugs -
As Congress finalizes plans to expand Medicare, more and more seniors are beginning to understand that “free” prescription drugs from the government will carry a very high price tag. The tragedy is that our society is allowing the pharmaceutical industry, phony senior lobbies, and vote-hungry politicians to force millions of older Americans into a government-run Medicare ghetto.
www.house.gov 10/14
- Lawsuit Abuse: Patients Are Paying The Price -
In the last twenty years, personal injury lawyers have found litigation against healthcare providers and pharmaceutical manufacturers to be a lucrative "growth area" in their practices. Litigation that has enriched personal injury lawyers, however, is adversely impacting both the quality and the cost of care for the rest of us.
Sick of Lawsuits.Com 10/10
- Pension payments eased by House bill -
The House voted yesterday to allow businesses to pay less into workers' pension plans over the next two years, saying the $26 billion in relief was needed to enable companies to keep plans afloat and protect benefits for future retirees.
Washington Times 10/10
- Post Editorial Nails It: Dems in Denial -
An editorial in Thursday, October 2nd's Washington Post shuns Democratic presidential candidates for talking the talk on fiscal discipline yet providing muffled responses when the subject comes to unmanageable future entitlement obligations.
Washington Post 10/08
- See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil -
A recent report commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, but buried by the Bush administration, pointed out the magnitude of the fiscal crisis confronting the U.S. in funding health care and pension commitments to the rapidly aging “baby boom” generation. As Niall Ferguson and Laurence Kotlikoff suggest in an important article in the Fall 2003 issue of the National Interest, the looming imperative of achieving fiscal solvency through a combination of painful tax increases and spending cuts eventually will spur the realization that America’s imperial ambitions are unaffordable. Over time, America’s fiscal troubles will erode its economic power—which is the foundation of its military might—and, as the relative power gap between the U.S. and potential new great powers begins to shrink, the costs and risks of challenging the United States will decrease and the pay-off for doing so will increase.
Excerpt from American Conservative 10/07
- Doomsday -
...the reality is that after 2013, things (financial circumstances) will get worse. The first of the baby boomers reach retirement age in 2008, and from that point on, Social Security and Medicare payments will explode, as the number of claimants rises each year. As Pete Peterson, the Republican former secretary of commerce, told the news conference where this report was presented, anyone who thinks those programs are solidly financed ought to think again. "To talk about a Social Security trust fund is a fiscal oxymoron," he said. "It isn't funded and it can't be trusted." Rather, the government faces $25 trillion of unfunded entitlement obligations.
Washington Post 10/07
- Nursing shortage could kill you -
...critical-care nursing is adequately staffed in most places in the country. But the same can no longer be said about nursing in many standard hospital environments, senior living facilities, skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies.
Washington Times 10/06
- Better nurse training means fewer deaths -
The ongoing nursing shortage in the United States has forced some hospitals to rely on nurses with less than a college education as they scramble to fill vacancies but new research suggests the practice can yield deadly consequences for patients.
Washington Times 10/06
- DeMint Introduces Social Security Reform -
In Social Security This Week: DeMint Introduce Social Security Reform Bill; Tanner: Credible Dems Must State Position on Social Security; Forbes
Encourages Administration to Stand on Personal Accounts; and much more!
Cato Institute 10/03
- Deep Divides -
The question that always is at the center of the debate over health care in this country is whether government or individuals should be in charge of managing resources and decisions.
Galen.com 10/02
- American seniors worse off than others
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A study of U.S. and Swedish senior citizens shows 60 percent of Americans 75 years or older have unmet assistance needs, compared with 4 percent of Swedes.
Washington Times 10/02