Bush takes aim at Social Security

Following his election victory, President Bush wasted little time in detailing his legislative priorities for a second term—including efforts to privatize Social Security.

“I earned capital in the campaign—political capital, and now I intend to spend it,” Bush told reporters in a news conference held just hours after the election. Among the items topping the president’s agenda was Social Security “reform.”

Earlier this year, the Bush administration’s Economic Report of the President outlined two principal goals for the program: cutting Social Security Benefits and creating private accounts under the program. The proposals prompted a firestorm of protest from those who saw diverting Social Security into private accounts as an attack on this fundamental safety net for millions of Americans because it would shift a part of the guaranteed Social Security benefit to a risky 401(k) type of account.

And many warn that the overall Bush reform plan is based on fuzzy math and fuzzy logic.

“Here’s the problem,” a Newsday editorial explained: “Bush wants to allow workers to siphon off a portion of their payroll taxes into private accounts and invest it in the stock market for their eventual retirement. But Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program. The payroll taxes of current workers pay the benefits of current retirees. So every dime that goes into private accounts is a dime that won’t be available to pay benefits for retirees today and in the near future.”

Filling that hole, several groups warn, could cost $1 trillion or more—about a quarter of the nation’s gross domestic product.

In 2002, delegates to the AFT convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing plans to replace Social Security’s guaranteed benefits with individual retiree accounts and pledging union support for a Social Security system that “maintains economic security for current and future retirees, reducing the economic burden on younger family members to care for their older relatives.” The AFT is committed to fighting the privatization of Social Security.

California delays nurse-to-patient staffing ratios

Almost one year after California became the first state in the nation to set limits on the number of patients assigned to a nurse, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration has decided to delay the regulations, except for those already in place. Under what the state is calling “emergency” regulations, hospitals will maintain the current ratio of one nurse to every six patients, but the plan to reduce the ratio to one nurse for every five patients is on hold for at least three years. In addition, emergency departments now will be allowed to temporarily forgo mandated staffing ratios during “an unforeseeable influx of patients.”

The emergency regulations are in place for 120 days, during which the state department of health services will accept public comments and hold a public hearing. At the end of that period on Jan. 21, the department could change the emergency regulations or readopt them as they are. In the meantime, the administration plans a two-year study of the effect of nurse-to-patient ratios.

States remain unprepared for bioterrorism

The nation still is struggling to prepare a defense against bioterrorist attacks, according to a recent study by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH). The report, “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public’s Health in the Age of Bioterrorism 2004,” looked at 10 key indicators to gauge state preparedness and determine America’s overall readiness to respond to bioterrorist attacks and other health emergencies.

Over two-thirds of states and Washington, D.C., achieved a score of six or less. Florida and North Carolina scored the highest, achieving nine of 10 indicators of preparedness, and Alaska and Massachusetts scored the lowest, at three out of 10. None of the states met all of the indicators but most were in the middle range. Overall, the report found that many basic bioterrorism detection, diagnosis and response capabilities are still not in place.

“This report found that more than three years after 9/11 and the anthrax tragedies, we’ve only made baby steps toward better bioterrorism preparedness,” says Lowell Weicker, TFAH board president. “The conclusions of this study demand an answer to the big question here: What will it take to make bioterrorism and public health preparedness a real national priority?”

The report notes that nearly one-third of states cut their public health budgets in the last two years, and federal funding for bioterrorism decreased by $1 million per state in 2004. In addition, the report indicates that shifting federal priorities and programs are distracting from improvement efforts, and the public health workforce is on the decline as baby boomers retire and recruitment lags.

“Sadly, what we found is that public health professionals have been left to juggle competing priorities with limited resources, and that flash is distracting from substance. We need to focus on fixing the fundamentals and get back to the tried-and-true basics,” said Shelley Hearne, TFAH’s executive director.

In its report, TFAH offers recommendations to improve bioterrorism and public health preparedness. They include conducting practice drills to assess capabilities and vulnerabilities, helping identify gaps and improving coordination of roles and responsibilities, and limiting liability to encourage vaccine development and protect healthcare workers. The report and state-specific information are available at www.healthyamericans.org.