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Congress Wants to Double Down on VA Failures
Bipartisanship has broken out in Washington. This isn’t usually a good sign. Faced with the ongoing scandal in the VA health-care system, Democrats and Republicans have joined together to rush through legislation in near-record time. The Senate passed legislation, sponsored…
VIDEO: Schatz, Hanabusa Spar Over Social Security
Video shows a portion of the July 2, 2014 U.S. Senate candidate forum held at Sangha Hall in Hilo, Hawaii. Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa is challenging incumbent Senator Brian Schatz for the position. The topic of social security came up early during…
Tracking Medicare money to Idaho providers
Do you ever wonder how much your doctors get paid by Medicare? And what they’re doing for that money? Curious how many seniors in Idaho have gotten cataract surgery and what that cost Medicare? The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services…
Obamacare Awash in Millions of Data ‘Inconsistencies,’ Report Finds
Little more than eight months ago, the bungled rollout of the government’s Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov, touched off an avalanche of bad news for President Obama and his health care team. Now comes a new federal report that gives more details…
Using Immediate Annuities to Guarantee Retirement Income
With thousands of baby boomers hitting retirement age each day, you might think that investments that offered guaranteed income payments would be among the most popular. Yet immediate annuities—which, in return for a lump sum, do precisely that—are still something…
Medicare Costs for Breast Cancer Screenings Skyrocket, But Do Patients Benefit?
Breast cancer screening costs for Medicare patients skyrocketed between 2001 and 2009, while the number of screening mammograms performed remained stable. What makes this even worse is that the increased cost did not lead to earlier detection of new breast…
Richard M. Scaife, Newspaper Publisher and Heritage Foundation Trustee, Dies at 82
Richard M. Scaife, philanthropist to conservative causes and publisher of Tribune-Review Publishing, Co., died Friday at the age of 82. Scaife, an early supporter of The Heritage Foundation and member of its Board of Trustees since 1985, was serving as vice chairman…
Former officer fought to end disability and return to work
We’ve all heard of people fighting to get on disability, but not off of it. A former Metro police officer, who lost his leg, fought to end his benefits. “I was hired in 1989, road Dixie Highway on 3rd shift…
Time to crack down on Social Security judges who ‘rubber stamp’ disability benefits
House Republicans signaled this week they will pressure the Social Security Administration to crack down on administrative law judges who appear to “rubber stamp” disability benefits for applicants who had been denied at a lower tier. In a letter to Acting SSA Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin,…
How to Deal With a Retirement Catastrophe
Aspiring retirees have many decades of retirement life they need to plan for. There are also a wide variety of things that could go wrong with your financial plan, ranging from poor investment returns to high inflation. How your investments will perform…