Free Republic

The explosive idea of forcing Internet providers to record their customers' online activities for future police access is gaining ground in state capitols and in Washington, D.C.... Mandatory data retention requirements worry privacy advocates because they permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity that normally would have been discarded after a few months. And some proposals would require providers to retain data that ordinarily never would have been kept at all.... Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the free-market Cato Institute, was the member of the Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity...

Freepers - - I'm working on my dissertation topics which is "Should the US institute a single-payer health care system similar to Great Britain and Canada" and the subtitle is something like "An Agenda for Solving America's Health Care Crisis using Health Savings Accounts". I'm in need of Freeper help. This is the last leg in this middle-aged Freeper's journey toward an MBA, so be gentle. I'm looking for Freeper inputs regarding your feelings about the health care system in America, as it stands today. I'm looking for Freepers from all walks of life; Doctors, small business owners, retirees, those...

Heads up, Americans. The Bush administration is now greasing the skids for employers to drop your health coverage. This is a biggie. Radical change was not the headline when the president unfurled his latest proposals for health savings accounts. It was presented mainly as a sensible-sounding way for people without medical insurance to buy it with pre-tax dollars, the same way companies do. George Bush's new HSA is actually a rocket-powered tax shelter dressed up as a sweet little program to help the uninsured. It would also undermine the traditional health coverage now offered by employers. (More on that in...

President Bush's proposed expansion of Health Savings Accounts depends on a premise that research shows is questionable: that Americans want more financial choices in their lives.

When President George W. Bush, in his second inaugural address, described his vision of an "ownership society," he specified not only the ownership of homes, businesses, and retirement savings, but also that of health insurance. Today, the most visible embodiment of this goal in the health care sector is the health savings account (HSA), which reflects a philosophical shift in emphasis from collective to individual responsibility for the management and financing of care. HSAs form the core of the emerging "consumer-directed" insurance plans, imposing greater cost sharing on enrollees but permitting broader choices than the health maintenance organization (HMO) plans...

Health savings accounts (HSAs) and other health care payment options have seen an increase in popularity. They have begun to receive wider acceptance in the work place and represent a philosophical shift toward consumer-directed health care, says the New York Times. If successful, these accounts could dominate and become the exclusive option at some companies. According to the Times: Nearly 8 percent of large employers already offer HSAs, 18 percent plan to offer them in 2006 and 47 percent are considering them. But awareness of HSAs is quite low and confusion runs high, in part because health insurers, third-party administrators...

Allow me to take a moment to inform you about a dark part of my past that I have kept from quite a few people; while I was a child I was an unwilling member of a cult known then as Human Service Alliance and after quite a few name changes it is now known as the Center for Purposeful Living. I was young and when you're in an environment like that you don't know any better regardless of your age. Shortly after my now disowned biological mother divorced my father she started taking my brother and I to a...

The National PTA, representing 26,000 local affiliates, solicited a workshop and exhibit by Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) for public school action against anti-homosexual beliefs at the PTA's convention next month. But another group, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) of Alexandria, was rejected as an exhibitor at the June 24-26 convention in Columbus, Ohio.

"We should have secured the Mexican border." That could be the pitiful lament we hear from negligent U.S. officials if Al Qaeda pulls off an attack on the United States using weapons of mass destruction smuggled across our southern frontier. Were that horrendous event to happen, leaders in the administration and Congress would be justly hit with the same question that was perhaps unjustly cast at them and their predecessors after the unprecedented Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: Why didn't they connect the dots? This time, they will have no good answer. We have seen warning signs: Al Qaeda wants...

...[O]ur indictment here is of the conditioned cowardice of the health-care policy community at large. How can you expect better of Mr. Kerry when the arbiters of good policy... judge candidate health plans by a single criterion: Which would commit the most resources to health care? There not being unlimited funds to spend on health care, Mr. Kerry's plan would only speed the day when politicians, no longer able to write blank checks with the private sector's money, would face directly the choice of whether to curb consumption or raise taxes to pay for it. That's the job description of...

...Basic problems remain the same, however. And so do many of the proposed solutions. In Washington, Democrats continue to push statist prescriptions to America's health care ills; at the state level, legislatures experiment with them. It would be easy, thus, to assume that while Hillary Clinton lost the battle, she is winning the war.... Tomorrow, President Bush shouldn't just emphasize HSAs (which Sen. Kerry, incidentally, opposes). He can map out further reforms that will make health insurance more affordable: • Tax fairness. While employer contributions to health insurance are non-taxable, individuals must pay in after-tax dollars. Leveling the tax field...

Health savings accounts are a clever way to let you control your own medical costs, choose your own doctors and save money, too. And they're coming soon to an employer near you. Much of the credit goes to Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania's junior U.S. senator. Santorum has been pushing HSAs and their older cousin, medical savings accounts, through Congress since 1991. Q: What exactly is a health savings account? A: It's similar to an IRA or an education savings account, which is a tax-free account. In other words, it's money you can divert from your paycheck, and your employer can put...

Did Saddam Hussein use any of his ill-gotten billions filched from the United Nations oil-for-food program to help fund Al Qaeda? Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam’s overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda that continued after billions of oil-for-food dollars began pouring into Saddam’s coffers and Usama bin Laden declared his famous war on the U.S. Now, buried in some of...

Group Runs Anti-Kerry Ads on Black Radio Stations By Thomas B. Edsall Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 12, 2004; Page A01 A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots. The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms...

Health Care: Opposition to medical savings accounts has often been based on the claim they'd do nothing to help the 40 million Americans who are uninsured. But new data show the claim to be groundless.Critics also said that only the rich and young would have MSAs. Those most in need of health care — the poor and the elderly — would remain in need. But the critics were wrong. Their concerns have not materialized.Health savings accounts — based on what were once known as medical savings accounts — have been available to every American only since Jan. 1. But that's...

By Bart A. Basi and Roman A. BasiIndustrial DistributionJuly 1, 2004   No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you, the title of this story does indeed say "decreasing." The Medicare bill that was signed into law on December 8, 2003 established a new and innovative insurance program for employers and employees called an "HSA", otherwise known as a Health Savings Account. This revolutionary vehicle will help many employers, large and small, save taxes and save money on health insurance premiums.What is an HSA? An HSA is a tax-exempt account that is created for the purpose of paying qualified...

MSNBC is reporting that US Air Marshals are reporting that air passengers are frequently pointing the Marshals out to other passengers. I have played spot-the-Marshal for over a year now. Guess how I spot them... The Air Marshal's management requires them to travel in freshly pressed suits with ties plus brightly shined shoes. In these days when most people fly in comfortable clothes, a fit, a clean cut man in a suit and tie sitting in the back rows of First or Economy stands out like a sore thumb. This reminds me of REMFs who decided that our Special Forces...

Health accounts heal pocketbooksSupporters praise new tool, but some see disparity By Tyler Pearson, Medill News Service Last Update: 6:09 PM ET May 19, 2004 WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Congress received a glowing report Wednesday on the new Health Savings Accounts, including an endorsement from Treasury Secretary John Snow, but at least one dissenter said the plans create a two-tier system the benefits younger, healthier workers. "Individuals should be able to manage some of their own health care dollars through accounts they own and control," said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a think tank that promotes...

The Health Savings Account was hidden away in the prescription drug bill passed by Congress last December. But unlike the seriously flawed drug plan, the Health Savings Account is an exciting concept that could make health insurance available -- affordable -- for millions of Americans who aren't covered by an employer plan. It's a concept so new that the insurance industry is just gearing up to make it available. Health Savings Accounts combine inexpensive, high-deductible health insurance plans with a tax-advantaged savings account. "Tax-advantaged" is a new phrase, appropriate because this new account has so many different tax benefits. Aside...

Remarks by the President on Access to Health Care Presidential Hall Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building THE PRESIDENT: Thank you for being here. Please be seated. Thanks for coming. If you're wondering who these characters are behind me, these are people who have just shared their stories about what it means to be an employer or employee and facing rising costs of health care. The cost of health care is an issue in our country, and we must deal with it in a rational way. And that's what I want to discuss with you today. I want to thank...