Originally published June 16 2005
Congress increasingly resistant to Social Security plan
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
This Wall Street Journal article covers the many complexities to Bush's new Social Security plan, including increasing opposition in Congress and resistance among the elderly.
MSNBC reports that as Mr. Bush spoke, the White House issued written material explaining that the type of change he had in mind would be accomplished by a "sliding scale benefit formula," in which future upper- and middle-income retirees would get lower payments than are currently promised -- a fact the president did not mention during his press conference.
The Dallas Morning News reports that before Mr. Bush's speech House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said: "The more his plan is out there, the less people approve of his handling of Social Security.
THE PACK SEPARATES: Earlier this week, in the first congressional hearing on Social Security, Democrats were unified in their opposition to private savings accounts, but Republicans began to splinter amid faltering public support for the president's plan, the Washington Post reports.
Despite the president's "valiant effort" to sell Congress on his plan, the "prospects are dim" for getting Social Security-reform legislation passed, Mr. Barnes says.
SHIELDING BENEFITS: As the Senate debates the future of Social Security accounts, a Social Security debate of another kind is brewing over in the judicial branch of government -- over student loans.
'NOTCH' IN THE BENEFITS BELT: A group of Americans born between 1917 and 1921, who believe they were "stiffed by the Social Security system," are giving up their fight to get Congress to replenish their benefits, writes Sue Doyle in the Inland Valley (Calif.) Daily Bulletin.
MEDICARE TV: A new federal policy will make it harder to get face-to-face hearings when the government rejects Medicare claims for home care, nursing-home services, prescription drugs or other services, writes Robert Pear in the New York Times.
That's because the number of sites that hold these hearings will be whittled down to four from 140 once the Health and Human Services Department takes over the responsibility in July.
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