Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for the poor and near poor, is the largest single expenditure by state governments today. At the rate the program is growing, it is on a course to consume the entire budgets of state governments in just a few decades.
President George W. Bush has promoted the ‘Ownership Society’ as a solution to a variety of public policy issues including health care, housing and retirement. This concept can be extended to environmental issues.
Critics of President Bush’s Social Security reform proposal have used findings by Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University, to suggest that many workers will lose money if they open personal retirement accounts (PRAs), which are a key component of the president’s reform approach.
The Bush Administration has proposed a two-part Social Security reform plan that would reduce the growth in initial benefit payments awarded to higher earners and allow all younger workers to invest part of their Social Security payroll tax dollars in personal retirement accounts.
The Earth currently is experiencing a warming trend, but there is scientific evidence that human activities have little to do with it.
This study examines the effects of fundamental tax reform as well as combining tax reform with fundamental Social Security reform.
Should we try to prevent global warming? Or should we use our resources to adapt to the consequences of warming? This paper analyzes costs and benefits of two different approaches.
Social Security reform in the United States has become a nationally debated topic, but privately managed, funded plans are already a component of the social security systems of more than 30 nations around the world.
The latest trend in health care? Patients are managing their own care. New technologies make it possible. Legislative changes facilitate it. And financial pressures all but require it.
Unemployment insurance was intended to provide a financial safety net for laid-off workers. But the way the system is structured encourages employers to lay off employees and discourages workers from seeking new jobs until their benefits are nearly exhausted.
The United States is about to experience the greatest demographic change in its history. Most of this change will occur over the next 30 years, as 77 million baby boomers cease to work and pay payroll taxes and instead start to retire and collect benefits.
America’s entitlement programs for senior citizens are on an unsustainable course. Unless changes are made soon, we face the prospect of exorbitant tax rates or severe benefit cuts.
Chile adopted a new pension system featuring privately managed individual accounts in 1981. The system gives us an opportunity, based on more than 20 years of experience, to examine how pensioners and pension providers react when individual accounts replace government-run, defined benefit pension systems, and how various regulations shape these reactions. This paper focuses on the payout stage.
Seniors, the uninsured and others who pay for prescriptions out of pocket are looking for ways to cope with rising drug costs. While many seniors can lower their drug bills by using the new Medicare discount drug cards and the new subsidies for low income retirees, every patient interested in saving money on drug therapy should consider a common-sense solution: smart shopping.
Senator John Kerry has proposed a plan to radically reform the U.S. health care system. If he is successful, millions of middle-income families will be enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor.
Economic freedom raises incomes and improves living standards. It requires strong institutions and encourages their further development. Over time, poor developing countries that have adopted policies consistent with economic freedom have pulled ahead of their former peers.
Fatherless families are a growing problem, but the principal cause is not bad behavior or the fault of fathers; it is government policies with respect to divorce and child support.
The 2004 Medicare and Social Security Trustees Reports show that programs for the elderly are on an unsustainable course. The expenditures exceed the revenues to be collected, and the funding gap is projected to grow through time.
Who pays the lowest prices for prescription drugs? Patients who pay for drugs themselves have an incentive to shop for the lowest price, whereas those patients whose drugs are paid for by third parties have less incentive to shop.
This paper analyzes the differential impact on the two genders of pension reforms in Chile, Argentina and Mexico, which have adopted systems in which social security benefits are primarily financed by mandatory savings in individual accounts.
Social Security and Medicare have made future promises far in excess of tax revenues that will be collected at current tax rates. The difference between what has been promised to current and future generations and what will be collected from taxes dedicated to fund these programs is an "unfunded liability."
As Congress debates ways to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, and state governments debate ways to lower drug costs for almost everyone else, it may be time to consider a commonsense solution: smart shopping.
Medicare is in need of reform. In a few years, as medical costs escalate and baby boomers retire, Medicare and Social Security will place significant burdens on the federal budget.
Social Security was created in an era in which the typical household consisted of a working husband and a stay-at-home wife. The structure of Social Security rewards that type of arrangement and penalizes two-earner households.
Part of the solution to insuring the uninsured is the creation of Association Health Plans. These are plans created for individuals and groups who belong to associations that are related to jobs, careers, or hobbies and interests. The potential for growth of this type of insurance is quite large – given a favorable regulatory climate.