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Horror Flick at USA Today: Return of the Granny Bashers XCIV

Excerpt: USA Today decided to get its entry in the summer horror flicks out early, The Return of the Granny Bashers XCIV tells readers how the affluent elderly are ripping off their children and grandchildren by collecting Social Security and Medicare (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!).

ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today Health Care in America 2006 Survey (PDF)

Excerpt: This poll examines Americans' views and experiences related to health care costs and quality, as well as their attitudes toward possible policy solutions. The results are featured in a series of reports on ABC News programs, ABCNews.com, and in USA Today during the week of Oct. 15, 2006.

The USA TODAY Lifetime Social Security and Medicare Benefits Calculator: Assumptions and Methods (PDF)

3 pages. "C. Eugene Steuerle and Adam Carasso ... helped USA TODAY design a web-based retirement benefits calculator that appeared on the paper's website October 4, 2004. The calculator estimates the lifetime value of Social Security and Medicare benefits and compares them against the lifetime value of taxes for these two programs. Included is the new Medicare prescription drug program. Not included are estimates of the benefits and taxes for the Disability Insurance program."

USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health Survey: The Public on Prescription Drugs and Pharmaceutical Companies (PDF)

Excerpt: [The survey] finds Americans greatly value prescription drugs' potential benefits for their families, but most believe they cost too much money and many struggle to pay for needed medicines. The survey also provides a comprehensive look at Americans' views on, and experiences with, prescription drugs and the pharmaceutical industry, including drug costs, advertisements, safety issues, government regulation and medical research.

National Survey of Households Affected by Cancer (PDF)

Excerpt: This USA TODAY/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health National Survey provides an in-depth examination of how families cope with cancer and highlights problems of health insurance and health care costs through the lens of those who have experienced this major illness. [The target page has links to the USA TODAY series of articles, the news release, the survey summary and chartpack, and the toplines.]

Group Pushes for Required Contributory Plan: 'Retirement USA'

Excerpt: All employers would be required to contribute to a retirement plan for their workers under a series of reform principles offered today by a group of worker advocacy and policy associations. At a conference in Washington, the group, which includes the Pension Rights Center and the Service Employees International Union, rolled out its new 'Retirement USA' initiative, which is intended to pave the way for the creation of a new retirement system that would provide workers without an employer-sponsored retirement plan enough income on top of their Social Security payments to 'maintain a reasonable standard of living in retirement,' according to a statement the group released.

Public School Teachers Strike for Higher Pay Amid Growing Retirement, Benefit Costs

"While average inflation-adjusted teacher salaries have been relatively stagnant since 1990, benefits costs have risen from 16.8 percent of expenditures in 1990 to 23 percent of today's much larger expenditure base.... Almost every state increased teachers' retirement benefits in the booming 1990s. But the additional promises were not accompanied by responsible funding plans. Overfunded at the turn of the millennium, by 2003, teacher pension plans were collectively short by $235 billion. By 2009, pension debt had more than doubled, to $584 billion."

We No Longer Have a Pension Crisis (Sort Of)

"Is our corporate pension crisis over? Sort of. [A] more accurate observation is that these things constantly move in cycles. Pensions looked underfunded in the early 1990s. Then they were way overfunded in the late 1990s. Then they became strained in the early 2000s. Then they were overfunded again by 2007. Next came the half-a-trillion-dollar shortfall last year, and today, we're back to fairly healthy levels. Funding calculations rely on assumptions. Those assumptions are usually wrong, and they can change dramatically overnight."

HHS Releases Rule on Insurers' Essential Health Benefits

"[T]he rule doesn't include any surprises: A proposed rule released in November looks much the same as today's version.... HHS has said there are mechanisms built in that would keep costs down for everyone, including subsidies for people whose incomes fall below 400% of the poverty line and preventive care that is expected to keep long-term health care costs down."

Discount Prescription Drug Coupons No Bargain

"In the past year, about 19 million Americans used these incentives to fill prescriptions. Since 2009, the health care industry has seen a nearly fivefold increase in the use of discounts. Today, drug companies offer 395 medications, up from 86 drugs in 2009, under these programs. In truth, these discounts are a good deal for the drug companies, but not so good for patients or their insurers."