Saturday, September 01, 2001

How Patients' Rights Became a Fight The Norwood amendment gutted our bipartisan legislation, and this is why: First, our original bill started with the premise that a health insurance company should be treated just like any other person or institution in the health profession. That is, if it makes a decision that results in harm to a patient, it should be held accountable for that action. The Norwood amendment creates a whole new category for H.M.O.'s. It gives them special protections that no other industry has � like new federal limits on damages in cases where a patient is hurt by the actions of an H.M.O. Second, the amendment may pre-empt most state laws, so that already existing patients' rights laws in places like Texas, California and New Jersey could be rendered void. And in states where case law has been building in favor of patients' rights, the Norwood amendment would basically kill years of legal progress. Third, the amendment calls for a legal device called "rebuttable presumption." Few people could tell you what this means, but we've figured out that it increases the presumption of innocence for H.M.O.'s, making it harder for a plaintiff to prove liability. The big question for all of us as Americans has to be: Why is this happening? Why did the White House oppose a real patients' bill of rights at every turn, even when a majority of Americans support one, and even when a coalition of Republicans and Democrats in both houses of Congress had united behind one? And why are we sitting here today without a law that holds health insurance companies accountable, when the health and livelihood of millions of Americans depend on such a law? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/01/opinion/01BERR.html

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

Treaties Don't Belong to Presidents Alone Presidents don't have the power to enter into treaties unilaterally. This requires the consent of two-thirds of the Senate, and once a treaty enters into force, the Constitution makes it part of the "supreme law of the land" � just like a statute. Presidents can't terminate statutes they don't like. They must persuade both houses of Congress to join in a repeal. Should the termination of treaties operate any differently? The question first came up in 1798. As war intensified in Europe, America found itself in an entangling alliance with the French under treaties made during our own revolution. But President John Adams did not terminate these treaties unilaterally. He signed an act of Congress to "Declare the Treaties Heretofore Concluded with France No Longer Obligatory on the United States." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/29/opinion/29ACKE.html

Social Security (as We Know It) Is Here to Stay What matters about the trust fund is that its existence expresses the fact that Social Security is a liability of the government. The assets in the trust fund are Treasury bonds. And bonds, of course, are claims on general revenues, including money from taxes on capital gains and corporate income as well as the payroll tax. When Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says the bonds in the Social Security trust fund are not "real economic assets," he is denying that the full faith and credit of the United States stands behind the financing of Social Security benefits � at least as long as the Social Security system holds bonds. This rhetoric is dangerous because it could undermine confidence in the Treasury's bonds. As a matter of economics, the bonds in the trust fund are indeed irrelevant. When revenues from Social Security taxes no longer cover the benefits being paid out � which will happen somewhere around 2015 � the government will presumably sell bonds to make up the difference. The effect on the national economy will be the same whether the bonds are drawn from a stash at the Social Security Administration or printed fresh. Turning Social Security into a matter of individual private accounts, by contrast, would tear up the contract that Americans who paid Social Security taxes thought they had with their government. A government that promised justice for all would suddenly leave many of its older people at the mercy of the state of the market on the day they retire � or of the prevailing interest rate on the day they receive their annuities. No change in American society in the last half-century has been so dramatic as the reduction of the proportion of the elderly who are poor, and most of this change is the benign shadow of Social Security. That's a lot to put at risk. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/28/opinion/28MAYE.html

Monday, August 27, 2001

Report Says Lower Surplus Will Affect Social Security President Bush's tax cut and the nation's economic downturn will force the government to take $9 billion out of Social Security this year to pay for other operations, breaking a bipartisan commitment in Congress, congressional analysts reported Monday. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, offering a more pessimistic view of the government's finances than the Bush administration did last week, estimating the total budget surplus for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 at $153 billion -- down $122 billion from its May estimate. CBO says Social Security will be tapped for $9 billion in fiscal 2001. After a small non-Social Security surplus of $2 billion in fiscal 2002, CBO projects the government will use $18 billion out of the retirement program in 2003 and $3 billion in 2004.