It is imperative that, in 2006, Americans elect political leaders who are committed to Social Security.
by Nancy J. Altman
It was just over one year ago that President Bush, fresh from his re-election victory, announced that substituting private accounts for a part of Social Security’s guarantee would be a top priority of his second term. In so stating, President Bush broke ranks with every former president, Republican and Democratic alike. All had understood the value and importance of (…)
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What’s Next for Social Security?
1 February 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
2 comments -
Bush the Incompetent
27 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
By Harold Meyerson
Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it’s hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to George W. Bush. But it is this president’s defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his war in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his Medicare drug plan, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things — particularly when most of them were the president’s own (…) -
Interfaith leaders invoke morality in healthcare debate
1 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
By Scott S. Greenberger, Globe Staff
Let the politicians and lobbyists argue about copayments and premiums. The Rev. Hurmon Hamilton and Rabbi Jonah Pesner are waging their fight to expand healthcare coverage on a different, higher plane.
’’We don’t have anything in the game but the people we represent," Hamilton said on a windswept corner outside his Roxbury Presbyterian Church. ’’When we’re out there, we really are concerned about the 750,000 people without healthcare, and a large (…) -
Note to Health Care Reform Activists: Public Employee Health Benefits to Evaporate
1 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
by Andy Coates
According to two recent articles, one in the New York Times and one in the Wall Street Journal, the federal Governmental Accounting Standards Board has begun to require municipalities — states, counties, cities — to account for how much it will cost them to provide all the health care promised to present and retired public employees. This process, to be completed over the next 3 years, has already started in states like Alaska, Delaware, and Maryland and cities like Duluth, (…) -
Veterans Affairs loses $1.5 Billion, More Cuts in Care for Soldiers
16 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
1 commentAt $19.8 billion, the VA healthcare budget is just 2.6 per cent larger than last fiscal year. This figure is immediately turned into a negative. Inflation in the healthcare sector supplying goods and services to the VA has averaged 5.6 per cent per year for the last five years. The negative becomes larger when we factor in a 3.1 per cent pay raise for VA employees.
December 11, 2005 by Larry Scott — VA Watchdog dot Org
On November 30, President Bush signed the "Military Quality of Life (…) -
Food Workers Union Steps up Healthcare Reform Push
24 November 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
1 commentby Brendan Coyne
Joining the efforts of a government-founded national organization devoted to finding a workable solution to growing problems with the United States’s healthcare system, one of the nation’s largest unions yesterday announced its intention to actively engage members in the conversation. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) is the first labor union to join the two-year-old Citizens’ Health Care Working Group.
According to information compiled by the Working Group, (…) -
Open Season On America’s Seniors
28 October 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
by Robert M. Hayes
Robert M. Hayes, an attorney, is president of the Medicare Rights Center, the nation’s largest independent source of information and assistance on health care rights and benefits for older and disabled men and women. He led the national and New York Coalitions for the Homeless from 1979 to 1989, and has practiced law with firms in New York and Maine.
Deer hunting season is just starting up in much of the northern United States.
But the Bush administration has already (…) -
Desperation deal at GM
23 October 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
2 commentsBy Robert Kuttner
THE UNITED Autoworkers union has agreed to save General Motors over a billion dollars a year in health insurance costs. This is a disguised pay-cut, since workers will now pay more out of pocket for their healthcare.
The union agreed to this desperation deal to help keep GM alive. The once-dominant auto-maker posted a record $1.1 billion loss in the third quarter; and its former parts division, Delphi, with 34,000 union jobs, has just gone into bankruptcy. If and when (…) -
As goes General Motors
20 October 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
1 commentBy Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist
THE SIGH of relief for General Motors is a fresh reason for Americans to scream for a national solution on healthcare. Staggered by $3.8 billion in losses so far this year, but holding the leverage of cutting jobs, GM got the United Auto Workers to agree to a tentative contract that will probably triple or quadruple the contribution of workers to their healthcare.
Up to now, union members paid 7 percent of healthcare costs. Salaried GM employees are (…) -
Employers Will Be FORCED To Provide Immigrant Health Insurance?
28 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
2 commentsRepublicans Require Health Insurance for Immigrants Only
September 28, 2005 By Gene C. Gerard
Next month, Congress will consider an immigration reform bill introduced by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ). A component of the bill would require employers to provide health insurance to all workers who are registered immigrants. To be sure, immigrants who lawfully enter the country to work, and who pay taxes, should have access to health insurance. But this bill is poorly (…)