This paper compares and contrasts the two visions of Social Security's future. Its object is to give readers the background they need to understand the arguments made by the two sides, and thus to follow the debate that promises to enfold at the national level in the next few years -- first...

The nation is ill-prepared to finance the quantum jump in long-term care spending that is on its way as the baby boom ages. By default rather than by design, Medicaid has become the main source of funds for long- term care. But reliance on Medicaid has fostered the institutionalization of the...

Would privatization yield sufficient benefits to support low-income retirees and satisfy all others? Does a focus on private management of assets take attention away from the real issues in the future of Social Security?

Hospitals have been squeezed by the Balanced Budget Act; the uninsured population is still on the rise; long-term care is paid for largely by welfare grants. The nation's flawed structure of health care finance ultimately will adversely affect the quality of care for all.

The problem is that the payers of health care-government and employers alike-are in open revolt against costs they never anticipated would become so high. Payers succeeded for a time in limiting increases to rises in the general price level. But it is one thing to remedy the most glaring...

Hyman P. Minsky's insights into the relationship between profits, economic growth, and the public and private financial balances are particularly relevant to today's conditions. How can a Minskian view be applied to explain the processes that brought the economy to its current state and to...

The time has more than come to begin planning seriously for the aging of the baby boom generation. The need for planning goes beyond concerns about the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. Another crisis looms in the form of a huge bill for the care of baby boomers who in their old age will...

This paper examines the features of HMOs and their associated ethical problems. And it points to a framework of needed consumer protection. The problems seem to flow from the very design of HMO medicine. One is prepayment. Every revenue dollar is also potentially a profit dollar when not spent...

This paper looks at the ethical problems posed by managed care (in particular, at its incentives to physicians to economize on care), and points to a regulatory framework to provide consumer protection. HMO medicine has been effective in controlling once runaway health care costs. But it sets up...