Seniors and disabled Americans enrolled in Medicare's new prescription-drug program face more coverage disruptions in two weeks, state officials, doctors and pharmacists warn.
A special 90-day transition period, set by Medicare to prevent beneficiaries from losing any drug coverage, ends April 1. Private insurance plans can then stop covering drugs they don't usually pay for. Most of the 36 states that stepped in on an emergency basis to help low-income beneficiaries also will stop paying....
*Do you need an example of the compassionate conservative in Bush? According to Boston.com---
President Bush rejected extending the deadline to sign up for a new Medicare prescription drug benefit, as some lawmakers want, even though the program has caused confusion among enrollees.....
During an elected-leadership meeting a few weeks ago, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) erupted at Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) because he thought the newly elected majority leader was dragging his feet on lobbying reform.
Hastert was frustrated that other members did not grasp the importance of the political problem they face on this issue after the guilty plea of former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Boehner was sitting next to Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), whom he had recently beaten to become leader. He glanced at Blunt and told the Speaker matter-of-factly that lobbying reform is one of the major reasons he was sitting in that room, according to a source who attended the meeting.
That exchange is just one incident in GOP leaders’ almost-three-month tug of war over lobbying reform...
**Bill O'Reilly and the extreme right are attacking judges again. The Columbus Dispatch has the story:
Three months after sentencing a sex offender to probation rather than prison, Franklin County Judge John A. Connor yesterday found himself in the crosshairs of Ohio politicians calling for his impeachment and a national commentator who labeled him "the worst judge in America."
Connor, a soft-spoken Democratic Common Pleas Court judge, was roundly lambasted by Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, Attorney General Jim Petro, House Speaker Jon A. Husted and top-rated Fox television commentator Bill O’Reilly for sentencing a convicted sex offender to five years of probation instead of prison....
...Connor was unmoved.
"I made the best decision I could with the facts I had," he said in an interview yesterday as elected officials issued increasingly pointed statements calling for his ouster.
"I haven’t violated any laws. I haven’t violated my oath of office."
Last December, Connor sentenced 46-year-old Andrew S. Selva to five years of probation under intensive sex-offender supervision, including one year of home confinement with electronic monitoring....