WASHINGTON — The Bush administration promised on Thursday to provide new protections for low-income Medicare beneficiaries to ensure they can get prescription drugs promptly, at minimal cost. The promise came in the proposed settlement of a nationwide class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people who have had difficulty getting the medicines they need. Under the 2003 Medicare law, more than six million people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid are entitled to extra help with their drug costs. But in many cases, they could not get the assistance, so they did not receive the drugs they needed, or they experienced long delays. In early 2006, low-income beneficiaries were often overcharged, and some were turned away from pharmacies without getting their medications. Several states declared public health emergencies, and many stepped in to pay for prescriptions that should have been covered by the federal Medicare program. Under the proposed settlement, filed Thursday with the United States District Court in San Francisco, federal Medicare officials promised to speed up the process of providing extra help to low-income people, who now could qualify within days, rather than weeks or months. Drug benefits are delivered […]
The US economy is likely to ‘stagnate’ in the second half of this year, the International Monetary Fund warned on Friday, as stock markets in the US and Europe fell to their lowest levels since March and US bank shares hit a five-year low. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below 12,000 for the first time since March, while the broader S&P 500 fell 1.9 per cent, as oil rallied and concerns about the financial sector intensified. The S&P financials index hit its lowest level since April 2003, 5 per cent below its March low. Commercial and regional banks have borne the brunt of the recent pullback, because of fears about rising housing and consumer debt delinquencies. The IMF said continued economic weakness would result in inflation risk going down, not up, in the coming months, and urged the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates on hold for the time being – challenging market expectations that rate increases will soon be required. The IMF also suggested that the dollar had declined to a level at which it was closer to, if not at, its medium-term equilibrium value, on a broad trade-weighted basis. John Lipsky, second-ranking IMF […]
The White House and Congress today reached a deal on the most comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s intelligence surveillance laws in 30 years. It would provide potential retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that previously cooperated with the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program and extend government surveillance powers. After months of negotiations between President Bush’s top advisers and congressional leaders, the deal was announced today and set to be approved on the House floor tomorrow. Senate passage of the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had been held up since last summer largely because of fights about the immunity provision, would likely come next week. Some Democratic leaders have argued that the bill does not go far enough in protecting civil liberties. They were backed by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union that have filed lawsuits against telecommunications companies for helping the government monitor phone calls and e-mails into and out of the United States without warrants after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A key element of the new plan would give U.S. district courts the chance to evaluate whether telecommunications companies deserve retroactive protection from lawsuits. A previous proposal offered by Republicans […]
WASHINGTON — The world’s population will reach 7 billion in 2012, even as the global community struggles to satisfy its appetite for natural resources, according to a new government projection. There are 6.7 billion people in the world today. The United States ranks third, with 304 million, behind China and India, according to projections released Thursday by the Census Bureau. The world’s population surpassed 6 billion in 1999, meaning it will take only 13 years to add a billion people. By comparison, the number of people didn’t reach 1 billion until 1800, said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. It didn’t reach 2 billion until 130 years later. ‘You can easily see the effect of rapid population growth in developing countries,’ Haub said. Haub said that medical and nutritional advances in developing countries led to a population explosion following World War II. Cultural changes are slowly catching up, with more women in developing countries going to school and joining the work force. That is slowing the growth rate, though it is still high in many countries. The global population is growing by about 1.2 percent per year. The Census Bureau […]
When New York City wanted to make the biggest purchase of subway cars in U.S. history in the late 1990s, more than 3 billion dollars worth, the only companies that were able to bid on the contract were foreign. The same problem applies to high-speed rail today: only European or Japanese companies could build any of the proposed rail networks in the United States. The U.S. has also ceded the high ground to Europe and Japan in a broad range of other sustainable technologies. For instance, 11 companies produce 96% of medium to large wind turbines; only one, GE, is based in the United States, with a 16% share of the global market. The differences in market penetration come down to two factors: European and Japanese companies have become more competent producers for these markets, and their governments have helped them to develop both this competence and the markets themselves. Let’s take Germany as an example. Even though the sun is not so shiny in that part of Europe, Germany has put up 88% of the PV photovoltaics for solar power in Europe. Partly, this was the result of a feed-in tariff (FIT); that is, Germany guarantees that it […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
