Word: health
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Several employees and their union challenged the blanket ban, charging a violation of federal discrimination laws. But the Seventh Circuit, siding with the company, two weeks ago concluded that the workers had failed to show that the health hazard could be eliminated by anything less than the sweeping measure in question. Said the court: "The unborn child has no opportunity to avoid this grave danger, but bears the definite risk of suffering permanent consequences...
...House and a version passed earlier by the Senate have been ironed out, the program will land on George Bush's desk. The House version would expand Head Start programs for impoverished preschoolers, increase tax credits for poor families with three or more children and require states to set health and safety standards for child-care facilities. Though the President may grit his teeth, he may sign the act into law because it is attached to a budget-reconciliation package that contains a component very dear to his heart: a reduction in the capital-gains...
...proposed three-year contract that the machinists rejected offered pay raises of 4% in the first year and 3% in each of the next two, bonus payments of 8% the first year and 3% the second, improved health benefits and a 20% cutback in mandatory overtime. Boeing considered the offer "generous," said spokesman Russell Young. But union official Jack Daniels of District 751 in Seattle dismissed it as "peanuts," pointing to Boeing's profit of $614 million in 1988 and $356 million in the first half of this year...
There are few more abject sights than that of Congress surrendering to interest-group pressure. But even by the craven standards of Capitol Hill, it was striking when the House voted 360 to 66 last week to rescind the Medicare catastrophic health-insurance program that it had lopsidedly approved amid a self-congratulatory frenzy just last year. The Senate showed enough moxie to save fragments of the plan, but it too voted to kill a special income-tax surcharge (up to $800) that would have been levied solely on the affluent elderly to help fund the program...
...truth, the 1988 legislation was badly flawed, albeit well-intentioned. Reflecting the read-my-lips era, Congress mistakenly insisted that catastrophic insurance had to be self-financing, with none of the subsidy coming from general tax revenues. Small wonder that the most prosperous Medicare recipients, largely protected by private health insurance, rebelled against being singled out to aid the less fortunate. That responsibility should rest with all taxpayers. Despite the phony fixation on fiscal gimmicks, broad-based taxation remains the fairest way to fund federal programs. It is a principle that Congress and the White House ignore at their peril...