Faced with tough budget decisions, many states are turning to gambling as an answer to their economic woes. But most end up getting far more than they bargained for.
Barbara Dreyfuss
Posted inFeatures
What Hedge Funds Risk
Increasingly, everyone’s money — that’s what. Nobody rides herd on these unregulated investment funds, which now manage a tidy $1.5 trillion.
Posted inArticle
Evasive Maneuvers
The newly elected Democratic leaders in Congress are gearing up for a broad array of oversight hearings and investigations of the Bush administration. However, they are likely to butt heads with a Justice Department intent on thwarting their efforts — as Republican Senators Charles Grassley of Iowa and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania did recently when […]
Posted inDispatches
Doctoring Health Care, I
For all the hype over the Democrats retaking Congress, you’d think the reemergence of that body’s liberal lions would, in short order, bring about universal health care and a host of other panaceas. Winning universal health care, alas, remains unlikely, at least in the near term. Instead, repairing the cracked foundations of Medicare and Medicaid […]
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A Wedge in the Door
Millions of seniors will receive a rude surprise in the next two weeks when they open a mailing from the federal government explaining how the Medicare program will work in 2007. For the first time ever, beginning in January, what a senior pays for Medicare premiums will be linked to his or her income. This […]
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Medicare Woes
The Bush administration’s Medicare drug plan, designed to specifications set by big insurers such as Humana and United Healthcare, is headed for more turmoil over the next year, and seniors will be the ones to suffer. Why? Because, while a handful of insurers and HMO’s may be able to cash in on the program, by […]
Posted inDispatches
Tax Breakup
Employers face new opposition in their efforts to rein in health-care spending, and it’s not coming from the employees whom they are forcing to foot more of the bill. Instead, employers are at odds with their allies in the conservative think-tank world, who are mounting an all-out offensive to unravel the employer-based insurance system, which […]
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Déjà Flu
Once again the country is facing a flu vaccine shortage, but it has gotten little attention from the Bush administration. Health care facilities, schools, and supermarkets are canceling flu vaccine clinics in Arizona, California, Texas, New York, D.C., and elsewhere. As Hillary Clinton noted on November 10, the American Lung Association’s Flu Clinic Locator Web […]
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Eagle-Eyed Regulators
A two-year battle ended last week in a major defeat for deregulators when Congress overruled a controversial Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decision. Two years ago Daniel Troy, the first political appointee to become the agency’s top lawyer, stripped the FDA of its ability to regulate cosmetic contact lenses. That action set Troy against the […]
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Overbilled
On Tuesday, September 20, while pharmaceutical lobbyists in Washington were busy peddling influence in the halls of Congress, the Council of the District of Columbia was passing a groundbreaking law restricting drug-company pricing. By unanimous vote, the council declared that selling patented drugs at “excessive prices” was illegal. It defined “excessive” as anything more than […]