When Medicare Part D was introduced in 2003, the goal was to provide seniors with cheaper prescription drugs, writes Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) in an Op-Ed for the Duluth News Tribune . But, with the Part D "donut hole" and the clause that prohibits Medicare from negotiating drug prices, the burden of prescription drug costs has been a hardship for many of America's seniors over the past decade.
Working families aren't fooled. There's nothing "fair and balanced" about the Bowles-Simpson budget plan that would ultimately increase unemployment, cut Social Security benefits, tax workers’ health benefits and scapegoat federal employees while giving more tax breaks for sending jobs overseas and lowering tax rates for Wall Street and the wealthiest 2%. Yesterday, Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) introduced an amendment to H.R. 444 , that would direct President Obama to follow the budget recommendations of Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, known as the Bowles-Simpson plan.
When nurses are forced to carry a heavy patient load because of understaffing, the first to suffer are the patients. Several speakers at a Washington, D.C., City Hall press conference Monday said that legislation to establish a nurse-to-patient safe staffing ratio would protect patients’ safety and care.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent this message to working family activists:
Tom Ward’s hardest memory to live with was the day his father came home from what would be his last day of work. His father barely made it through the door, fell to the floor and, between tears, said, “I can’t do it anymore.”
Football is a dangerous sport by nature, but it doesn't have to be as dangerous as it is today.
The NFL Players Association ( NFLPA ) has awarded $100 million to Harvard Medical School for a 10-year study of player injuries and illnesses, including brain trauma. The study is funded under the collective bargaining agreement the players reached recently with the NFL. Its goal: to transform the health of current and retired players, whose lifespan averages 20 years less than men who are not professional football players.
Brace yourself. In coming weeks you’ll hear there’s no serious alternative to cutting Social Security and Medicare, raising taxes on middle class and decimating what’s left of the federal government’s discretionary spending, on everything from education and job training to highways and basic research.
“ We ” must make these sacrifices, it will be said, in order to deal with our mushrooming budget deficit and cumulative debt.
But most of the people who are making this argument are very wealthy or are sponsored by the very wealthy: Wall Street moguls like Peter Peterson and his “Fix the Debt” brigade, the Business Roundtable, well-appointed think tanks and policy centers along the Potomac, members of the Simpson-Bowles commission.
During President Obama's second inaugural address yesterday, he affirmed we're stronger when we work together:
But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone....No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.
Health care experts have long said that a public health insurance option not only would provide lower-cost health insurance for those who choose it but would also force private insurers to lower their premiums. A public option was a key element of the 2009 House-passed version of health care reform, but it did not make it to the final bill.
Now, as lawmakers focus on deficit reduction, with many Republicans calling for cuts in health care benefits and shifting even more costs to working families, the creation of a public option as a deficit-reducing tool—along with its other benefits—is back on the table.
In July, Patriot Coal filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York. Among the reasons for Patriot’s financial difficulties were the huge legacy costs related to health care benefits and pensions owed to retirees and widows of former employees. The company's intended goal, it seems, according to the Mine Workers ( UMWA ), is to get out of obligations to the miners that worked hard for decades, often doing significant damage to their own health.
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
Click here »
Tell us about the good stuff happening where you live and work.
