Bloomberg News

...Health expenditures consume about 16 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Translated to an individual family, medical insurance claims 20 percent of median income. That's compared with 8 percent in 1987, according to the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute in Washington...

``If we do not make health insurance more affordable, a majority of working Americans will be uninsured by 2020,'' it says in its ``The Next Social Contract'' report... LINK

Hillary Clinton and her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination are promising new domestic programs, tax cuts for the middle class and a return to balanced budgets. One problem: Their numbers don't add up.

The top candidates, Clinton, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, all propose more than $150 billion a year in tax breaks for middle- income earners and new federal spending on health care, energy and education. They also pledge "fiscal responsibility,''… more

Hillary Clinton's new plan to provide health care for all Americans differs more from her 1993 proposal known as "Hillarycare'' than it does from ideas offered by her chief Democratic rivals in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Clinton's proposal, presented yesterday in Iowa, draws on the same four principles that opponents Barack Obama and John Edwards already put on the table: Allowing many Americans the option of paying to join a new government-run plan, requiring insurance companies to accept all applicants… more

May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Barack Obama portrays himself as a new kind of leader who transcends conventional politics. Judging by the economists he has enlisted in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, he may just be. Obama's economic brain trust -- a blend of up-and-coming academics and former officials in President Bill Clinton's administration -- displays a fondness for backing innovative solutions to the nation's problems. Among them: offering ailing U.S. automakers aid in return for… more

April 6 (Bloomberg) -- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's probe of college lending practices includes a financial- aid official in the U.S. Education Department who held shares in a college student-loan provider. Matteo Fontana held 10,500 shares of Education Lending Group Inc., now a subsidiary of CIT Group Inc., in 2003, according to a September 2003 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Cuomo's office has issued subpoenas to CIT and Student Loan Xpress, a unit… more

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Banks that provide college loans with U.S. subsidies would have to compete for the payments, possibly saving the federal government as much as $7 billion a year, under legislation being drafted by Senator Edward Kennedy. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Senate Education Committee, plans to file the measure this week, spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner said. One "rough" estimate projects savings of $4 billion to $7 billion a year over the current system,… more

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The shrike is a bird known for its habit of catching small mammals, birds and insects and impaling their bodies on thorns. It's a rapacious hunter and obsessive hoarder that often stores more food than it can eat. And it's among the most compelling characters in "Oil on the Brain," Lisa Margonelli's oil-industry travelogue. In a chapter on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Margonelli learns about the shrike from a spokesman… more

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The largest U.S. teachers union is among a group endorsing a plan in Congress that would expand the federal No Child Left Behind law by offering states a single national standard for teaching math and science. The proposal by Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a Democrat who will lead the Senate Banking Committee, and Representative Vernon Ehlers, a Republican of Michigan, would set the curriculum standard on the federal level and give states… more

Democrats, who won the midterm elections promising to relieve financial pressures on middle- class families while restoring fiscal discipline to Washington, now face a crunch over paying for their promises.

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and her fellow congressional Democrats have yet to spell out how they'd pay for their middle- class agenda, which includes promises on college aid, retirement- savings incentives and health-care affordability.

Budget experts say that unless Democrats are willing and able to cut existing federal programs, raise… more