Word: billion
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...would tie the rates the public plan pays health-care providers to what Medicare reimburses. Given that Medicare reimbursement rates can be 30% lower than those paid by private insurers, such a system could be a powerful one at holding down costs and could save the Federal Government $110 billion over 10 years, according to the most recent estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). (The Federal Government's costs here would primarily be the subsidies it gives low- and middle-income people to help pay their premiums.) Not surprisingly, that robust public option faces strong opposition from doctors...
...Services Secretary negotiating with health-care providers to determine how much it would reimburse them. That wouldn't raise as many objections from health-care providers and insurers, but it wouldn't save all that much money either. The CBO estimates it would trim federal spending by about $25 billion over 10 years...
Before Bernie Madoff admitted to running a massive Ponzi scheme, Jeffry Picower was known for being a philanthropist. With about $1 billion in assets, the Picower Foundation, which he started with his wife Barbara, supported causes like neuroscience research at MIT and public education in Florida. The largesse seemed a fitting testament to the Bronx, N.Y., native's ascent from accountant and lawyer to billionaire investor and buyout artist...
Then came Madoff's swindle. Irving Picard, a court-appointed trustee, was charged with recovering the missing money, and Picower, a longtime Madoff friend who reportedly withdrew $7.2 billion over 20 years--including some $5 billion in fake profits--headlined the list of targets. Picard held that an investor of Picower's sophistication had to know something was amiss when his yearly returns went as high as 950%, and he accused Picower of helping Madoff perpetuate the scheme. Picower denied the allegations. His foundation, its endowment crippled, closed up shop...
Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, flew into the Gulf of Aden on Nov. 7 to celebrate the first exports of liquefied natural gas from a sprawling $4.5 billion plant - the biggest ever investment in his otherwise impoverished desert country. A brass band played and politicians applauded the gas tanker as it set sail for South Korea, but Saleh's attention was elsewhere - on the attacks that Saudi Arabia's military forces were waging against antigovernment Shi'ite rebels in the north of Yemen. The rebels "are trying to demolish the economy," Saleh tells TIME, vowing, "We will crush them...