Word: bille
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Consider, for example, the homeowners' association in a gated Southern California community that voted last year to build a new community center. "Thanks to the economy, our bill will be about 30% less than we'd estimated, and we've had tons of companies begging to bid on our job," says homeowner Marcia McNulty. (Read "Buying Local: How It Boosts the Economy...
...Bill Gage, who owns a corporate staffing firm in West Reading, Pa., and takes midday jogs several times a week to break up his long, stressful office hours, decided this spring to have a shower installed in his company's headquarters. Gage did not react well to the first contractor's estimate of $14,000: "I say, 'Are you nuts? I'm not paying your country-club dues, pal.' He drops the bid to $4,400." But Gage got another estimate, from his receptionist's husband, for $1,100. "He wins, and he does a super job, top notch...
...Hard to believe, but money is actually only half the problem. The flip side of cutting costs is adding coverage for the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans. To that end, both the House and Senate HELP bills include a public plan that would compete with existing private plans - a highly controversial idea that Republicans say is tantamount to the socialization of health care, but which many Democrats (including Obama) say is essential for any overhaul of the system. The Senate Finance Committee's bill takes a middle-of-the-road approach, including a co-op plan, essentially a nonprofit version...
...other thorny issues. The House, for example, envisions giving insurance to about 10 million currently uninsured by broadening the guidelines of Medicaid, the state/federal program for the poor. The problem is that many governors of already cash-strapped states are voicing their opposition to this proposal; while the current bill says Washington would foot the bill for these new Medicaid enrollees, states that are having a hard enough time as it is paying their share of the program are wary of what might happen several years from now. At the same time, Blue Dogs in the House are upset...
...Personal Touch From the beginning, President Obama has taken almost the exact opposite route than that taken by President Bill Clinton in 1993. The Clinton health-care plan was written in secret, without input from Congress, before the Administration tried to ram it down the throat of the legislative branch. The catastrophic failure of that strategy is still burned into the minds of many former Clinton staffers, including Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel...