Many on Medicaid Lack Drugs, Study Says The study was based on a survey of 39,000 adults, including nearly 1,800 on Medicaid. By most measures, it said, Medicaid recipients and people with private insurance have similar access to medical care. But, it said, prescription drugs appear to be an exception; some Medicaid recipients have almost as much difficulty as the uninsured in obtaining medications. Twenty-six percent of Medicaid beneficiaries ages 18 to 64 reported that they could not afford to get all their prescriptions filled in the last year, the report said. That was just slightly less than the 29 percent of uninsured people who reported similar difficulty. By contrast, 8 percent of people with employer-sponsored health coverage and 8 percent of elderly people with Medicare said costs prevented them from obtaining medicines. (Medicare generally does not cover prescription drugs outside the hospital, but about two-thirds of Medicare beneficiaries have drug coverage from other sources.) Len M. Nichols, vice president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, said, "The findings are surprising because Medicaid is expected to ensure access to affordable care for the poorest and sickest Americans." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/09/health/09DRUG.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

Many on Medicaid Lack Drugs, Study Says States have become so aggressive in trying to control Medicaid spending on prescription drugs that many Medicaid recipients do not get all the drugs prescribed for them, researchers said today. Although Medicaid covers prescription medicines in every state, one-fourth of patients enrolled in the program reported that they could not afford to fill some of their prescriptions in the last year, the researchers said. In an environment of rapidly rising drug prices, they said, states' cost-control efforts were the leading factor. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/09/health/09DRUG.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

Affluent Avoid Scrutiny on Taxes Even as I.R.S. Warns of Cheating The government looks for tax cheating by wage earners far more carefully than it looks for cheating by people whose money comes from their own businesses, investments, partnerships and trusts. This is true despite many warnings by federal tax officials that cheating is becoming far more common among affluent Americans. Even as Congress finances a crackdown on tax cheating by the working poor, it is appropriating little money to detect abuses by people, usually among the wealthiest Americans, who do not rely entirely on wages for their income. Executives at the Internal Revenue Service have mentioned this discrepancy in several reports to Congress. They have not focused attention on how little they can do about it. But an examination by The New York Times of I.R.S. statistics including audit rates and staff deployment figures, as well as interviews with current and former I.R.S. officials, shows that the agency can identify at best only a tiny percentage of the cheats and pursue even fewer of them. That the I.R.S. audits the working poor more frequently than wealthy people is well known. What has not been discussed is that the agency does not track nonwage income as closely as wage income � and in some cases does not verify it at all, even as the I.R.S. says that cheating on nonwage income is rising. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/business/07TAX.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

Energy Industry's Recommendations to Bush Became National Policy In one example cited by the natural resources council, the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group that represents the country's largest oil companies, submitted a proposed draft executive order on energy policy to the Energy Department on March 20, 2001. Two months later, Mr. Bush signed an executive order that the council's lawyers said was nearly identical in structure and language to the trade group's proposal. The executive order concerned government regulations that affect energy supply and distribution. "Big energy companies all but held the pencil for the White House task force as government officials wrote a plan calling for billions of dollars in corporate subsidies, and the wholesale elimination of key health and environmental safeguards," John H. Adams, the president of the council, said at a news conference today. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/politics/28ENER.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

Lockbox or Not, Social Security's Ills Grow Democrats are casting this year's budget fight in Congress as a test of which party can do more to wean the government off of using excess Social Security revenue to pay for general programs. As one way of making their point, Democrats are preparing to assail the administration for having to request an increase in the legal limit on the national debt, a step they say proves that the tax cut last year was fiscally irresponsible. In the wake of the Enron (news/quote) collapse � and looking for an issue to carry into the Congressional elections this fall � Democrats are trying to focus attention again on the push by Mr. Bush and many conservatives to let workers invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in the stock market. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/business/yourmoney/24VIEW.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

Doctors Shunning Patients With Medicare Medicare cut payments to doctors by 5.4 percent this year. The government estimates that under current law, the fees paid for each medical service will be reduced in each of the next three years, for a total decrease of 17 percent from 2002 to 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/health/policy/17HEAL.html

Oil Industry Hesitates Over Moving Into Arctic Refuge Publicly, the biggest multinational petroleum companies, like Exxon Mobil (news/quote), Royal Dutch/Shell, BP and ChevronTexaco, back the Bush administration's assertion that developing the oil in the Arctic refuge is critical to the American economy. But privately, many large companies say the prospect, solely on business terms, is not terribly attractive. "Big oil companies go where there are substantial fields and where they can produce oil economically," said Ronald W. Chappell, a spokesman for BP Alaska, which officially supports opening the area to drilling. Using the acronym for the refuge, he continued, "Does ANWR have that? Who knows?" http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/business/10ALAS.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

Top G.O.P. Donors in Energy Industry Met Cheney Panel Critics of the Bush administration's energy policy have long suspected that many of the corporations that were invited to advise the White House were large energy concerns that had contributed heavily to President Bush's campaign and the Republican Party in 2000. The White House has refused to release the names of the companies and individuals consulted during the formulation of the administration's energy policy last spring. It has been sued for the information. But interviews and task force correspondence demonstrate an apparent correlation between large campaign contributions and access to Mr. Cheney's task force. Of the top 25 energy industry donors to the Republican Party before the November 2000 election, 18 corporations sent executives or representatives to meet with Mr. Cheney, the task force chairman, or members of the task force and its staff. The companies include the Enron Corporation (news/quote), the Southern Company, the Exelon Corporation (news/quote), BP, the TXU Corporation (news/quote), FirstEnergy (news/quote) and Anadarko Petroleum (news/quote). http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/01/business/01ENER.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

Stuffing the Pillowcase With Soft Money With companies like AT&T, SBC Communications and Philip Morris leading the way, corporations provided the bulk of the $11,450,673 raised by 24 soft-money political committees run by Congressional leaders, including Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority leader, in the 12 months that ended June 30, according to Public Citizen, a group founded by Ralph Nader. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/26/politics/26DONA.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow Fuzzy math Alert reader John Hart sends this link. Apparently the Pentagon--that model of fiscal responsibility which has, of late, taken to tossing hundred dollar bills out of planes over the skies of southern Afghanistan, and to whom taxpayers will be giving an additional $48 billion this year--has misplaced 2.3 trillion dollars, which amounts to $8,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. Twenty years ago, Department of Defense Analyst Franklin C. Spinney made headlines exposing what he calls the "accounting games." He's still there, and although he does not speak for the Pentagon, he believes the problem has gotten worse. http://thismodernworld.com/

Web Site Helped Change Farm Policy It is www.ewg.org, operated by the Environmental Working Group, a small nonprofit organization with the simple idea that the taxpayers who underwrite $20 billion a year in farm subsidies have the right to know who gets the money. Conceived by Ken Cook, 50, director of the group, the Web site has become unusual in the crowded world of special-interest politics, where it is hard to get noticed in Washington, much less heard. It not only caught the attention of lawmakers, it also helped transform the farm bill into a question about equity and whether the country's wealthiest farmers should be paid to grow commodity crops while many smaller family farms receive nothing and are going out of business. In farm circles, where neighbors now know who is receiving the biggest checks from the government, the Web site has name recognition roughly equal to that of Heinz ketchup. Web Site Helped Change Farm Policy

America and Anti-Americans It would be easy for America, in the present climate of hostility, to fail to respond to constructive criticism, or worse: to start acting like the overwhelming superpower it is, making decisions and throwing its weight around without regard for the concerns of what it perceives as an already hostile world. The treatment of the Camp X-Ray detainees is a worrying sign. Secretary of State Colin Powell's reported desire to determine whether, under the Geneva Convention, these persons should be considered prisoners of war was a statesmanlike response to global pressure � but Mr. Powell has apparently failed to persuade President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/04/opinion/04RUSH.html

When Government Doesn't Tell Last year, to the dismay of historians, Mr. Bush signed an executive order restricting public access to the papers of former presidents. Attorney General John Ashcroft also established more restrictive rules governing what agencies release under the Freedom of Information Act. The government is even refusing to give Congress the results of a survey taken after the 2000 census to calculate how many people were either missed or double-counted by the census takers � data that has nothing to do with national security, law enforcement, confidential communications or any other normal grounds for keeping data from Congress. The Commerce Department says it is not confident the figures are accurate. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/03/weekinreview/03ROSE.html

Bush Budget to Seek Job Training Cut Even though unemployment has increased sharply in recent months, President Bush's budget will seek cuts in several job-training programs for laid- off workers and young adults most affected by the rise in unemployment, budget documents and federal officials say. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/31/politics/31BUDG.html

Voting Rights in Peril America has tried leaving election decisions to each state. We have no minimum federal voting rights standards for voting machines. The result: In the 2000 presidential election, 1.5 million ballots were discarded due to defective voting equipment. We have no minimum federal standards guaranteeing the right of a voter with a disability to cast a private and independent vote. The result: In 2000, 47 percent of voters with disabilities encountered physical barriers or had trouble getting to the polling place. State and local officials say they will eventually make necessary changes on their own. History teaches us, however, that states have been slow in outlawing discrimination. In 1868, the 14th Amendment was adopted, guaranteeing black citizens the rights and privileges of citizenship. In the name of states' rights, implementation was left to local control. This model failed, and federal legislation became necessary: Without the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination in public establishments and in hiring might still be legal in some parts of the country. Without the Voting Rights Act of 1965, poll taxes might still be prevalent. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/30/opinion/30CONY.html

The United States of Enron Wasn't that the best?" said a laughing Ann Richards this week, when I asked her reaction to President Bush's effort to hide behind her skirt when questioned about Enron. "It was so silly. Why didn't he just say Ken Lay was a strong supporter and gave him a half-million dollars and is a good friend, and he's really sorry Ken's in these terrible circumstances?" http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/19/opinion/19RICH.html

News: E-snoop bill runs aground A bill that would give California law-enforcement officials unprecedented power to monitor the e-mail and phone conversations of suspected criminals has hit a roadblock. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5101818,00.html

Mr. T., Mr. G. and Mr. H. Senators Helms, Gramm and Thurmond have in common the fact that they harnessed their collective century of seniority to the Taliban wing of the American right. Point to an act of cultural division, bullying unilateralism or anti-government populism committed in the Senate during their decades there and you will usually find these three men among the sponsors. But there are others in the Senate who have voted for egregious causes, right and left, and still others who have never stood for much of anything. What sets these three apart is that each has made his own special contribution to the cynicism of our public life. It is tempting to excuse them, in their twilight, for at least having made the place more colorful. Mr. Helms affected a theatrically courtly demeanor, sirring and ma'aming witnesses he regarded as infidels. (His manners were selective; it was the courtly Mr. Helms who once remarked that if President Clinton visited North Carolina he'd "better have a bodyguard.") Mr. Gramm pokes witty fun at his own orneriness. "People say I don't have a heart," he once joked. "I do. I keep it in a quart jar on my desk." As David Plotz wrote in Slate, Senator Gramm is a mean, bitter pessimist, but "he has benefited from one of the strangest prejudices of politics: that meanness is a synonym for integrity." Mr. Thurmond benefits from another prejudice, our instinctive American admiration for those who correct themselves. He abandoned his ardent segregationist views when the demographics of his state made that expedient, and even hired actual black people to work on his Senate staff, a fact sometimes reported with such awe that you'd think he'd marched with Dr. King in Selma. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/12/opinion/12KELL.html

The Quiet Man � The Bush administration operates on the principle of "no enemies on the right"; it also operates on the principle that Mr. Bush is infallible. Whatever policies he may have proposed in the past, his aides always insist that they are perfectly suited to the present � indeed, were devised with the present situation in mind. It's actually quite funny, though nobody dares say so. Last month, for example, Karl Rove explained that the tax cut, although originally proposed amid an economic boom, was designed to cope with the current recession. "All the signs were there in the second, if not the second, the third quarter of 2000," Mr. Rove said. When a questioner gently pointed out that Mr. Bush had laid out his tax plan way back in 1999, Mr. Rove brushed him aside. And since Mr. Bush is infallible, why should he ever reconsider his decisions? http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/08/opinion/08KRUG.html

Executive Privilege Again Six years ago the Rifleman claimed that the F.B.I. had promised him immunity from prosecution for his killings � allegedly including a couple of his girlfriends � but Federal Judge Mark Wolf, in a landmark decision, ruled that nobody in law enforcement had the power to sanction murder. The New England F.B.I.'s long-running abuse of power is "the greatest failing in federal law enforcement history," according to James Wilson, chief counsel to the House Government Reform Committee. Evidence of this sustained miscarriage of justice was the 30-year imprisonment of Joe Salvati, whom F.B.I. officials are said to have known to be innocent of the crime for which he was convicted � but they remained silent to protect Mafia sources. John Ashcroft's Department of Justice does not want Congress to air out this long, shameful story. At the time J. Edgar Hoover belatedly began his war on the Mafia, civil liberty was set aside to meet the perceived emergency � abuses that lasted through three decades. The current F.B.I. chief, Robert Mueller, was U.S. attorney in Boston during the mid-80's and presumably did not have an inkling about the unlawful law enforcement going on around him. Accordingly, the Bush Justice Department induced the president to sign an order asserting executive privilege over its "deliberative documents" that would inform the public of answers to questions like: Why did Justice decline to indict an F.B.I. supervisor who admitted taking money from Flemmi's gang? Why did Justice help defend a hit man in California who killed a man while in the witness protection program? http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/03/opinion/03SAFI.html