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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medicare is lurching toward disaster and it is too late for the Bush Administration and Congress to do anything about it, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said on Tuesday. He said the next administration will have to act to stop rising costs and get control of the $400 billion federal health insurance plan for the elderly, which now covers 44 million people. "Higher and higher costs are being borne by fewer and fewer people. Sooner or later, this formula implodes," Leavitt said in a speech to the right-leaning Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute...

I saw this sign on my way to my parents' house yesterday afternoon. I thought the irony was poetic. Enjoy http://www.flickr.com/photos/9342558@N08/2286898088/

WASHINGTON - Millions of $40 government coupons become available Tuesday to help low-tech television owners buy special converter boxes for older TVs that might not work after the switch to digital broadcasting. Beginning Feb. 18, 2009, anyone who does not own a digital set and still gets their programming via over-the-air antennas will no longer receive a picture. That's the day the television industry completes its transition from old-style analog broadcasting to digital. The converter boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $70 and will be available at most major electronics retail stores. Starting Tuesday, the National Telecommunications and...

TOKYO - An 89-year-old woman died after an ambulance crew spent two hours trying 30 hospitals before finding one that would accept her for treatment, Japanese officials said Friday. The woman's family called an ambulance early Tuesday morning after she became ill with vomiting and diarrhea, said Hideto Matsumoto, a fire official in Tondabayashi City, Osaka prefecture (state). The ambulance crew and local fire department contacted 30 hospitals before one finally said it could admit her, Matsumoto said — about two hours after her family had called for an ambulance. The woman's heart stopped when she was taken to Osaka...

WASHINGTON - The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a four-year extension of a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access, despite widespread support in both parties for a permanent ban. The tax ban, first passed in 1998, is set to expire on Nov. 1. The extension exempts some states that approved taxes prior to the original enactment. The vote was 405-2. "This bill is pro consumer, pro innovation and pro technology," said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., one of the bill's sponsors. The bill to extend the tax break fell short of the permanent exemption that many lawmakers favor....

BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. - The federal government is considering buying out as many as 17,000 homes along the Mississippi coast and remaking the land into a vast hurricane-protection zone, raising anxieties that it could destroy the waterfront lives many residents are struggling to rebuild after Katrina. The Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program could cost $40 billion, including buying the homes, building levees and restoring barrier islands. The land could be converted into wetlands or other public uses, such as golf courses or bike trails, but could not be sold for private development. For Finley Williford, a 42-year-old boat captain, a...

WASHINGTON - President Bush again called Democrats "irresponsible" on Saturday for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children's health insurance program. "Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed," Bush said of the measure that draws significant bipartisan support, repeating in his weekly radio address an accusation he made earlier in the week. "Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point." At issue is the Children's Health Insurance Program, a state-federal program that subsidizes health coverage for low-income people, mostly children, in families that earn...

WASHINGTON - The House on Tuesday approved a plan to expand federal backing of mortgages in hopes of helping struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure. The bill, which passed the House, 348-72, would allow the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages for low- and middle-income borrowers, to back refinanced loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who are delinquent on payments because their mortgages are resetting to sharply higher rates from low initial "teaser" levels. The measure, which exceeds limits favored by the Bush administration, is Congress' first stand-alone bill in response to the mortgage-market tumult of the summer, which came amid...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Someone is going to have to pay all the extra costs of making toys safer. For now, toy makers and retailers are sharing the burden, but that's only expected to last until the holiday season. Next year, American consumers will be facing price increases of up to 10 percent to pay for the industry's increased vigilance after more than 3 million lead-tainted toys from China were recalled worldwide since June. That means a $6.99 Barbie doll could go up to about $7.70, or a $70 child-friendly digital camera could retail next year for almost $80. A...

In February, a group of cardiologists in Gainesville, Ga., announced they were building a diagnostic heart center in an $18 million joint venture with the local hospital. Last month, they said the project was dead. The reason? Federal Medicare officials want to crack down on arrangements like the one that was planned in Gainesville, where doctors refer patients to businesses in which they have a financial stake. In recent years, many physicians have become wealthy by investing in magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, facilities, surgery centers and diagnostic sites -- and then sending their patients to them. A recent McKinsey...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top executives at major businesses last year made as much money in one day of work on the job as the average worker made over the entire year, according to a report released on Wednesday. Chief executive officers from the nation's biggest businesses averaged nearly $11 million in total compensation, according to the 14th annual CEO compensation survey released jointly by the Institute for Policy Studies based in Washington and United for a Fair Economy, a national organization based in Boston. At the same time, workers at the bottom rung of the U.S. economy received the first...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The extent of Arctic sea ice will likely have melted to a record low this September partially due to man-made greenhouse gas emissions, researchers at the University of Colorado said on Thursday. There is a 92 percent chance that Arctic sea ice extent in September will melt to its lowest level at least since the 1970s, when satellite measuring efforts began, the researchers said. They had predicted a 33 percent chance of a record low in April, but changed the forecast after a rapid disintegration of sea ice during July. Such high levels of ice melting...

WASHINGTON - Many seniors and the disabled will need to shop around next year to avoid an increase in their monthly premiums for the Medicare drug benefit. Medicare officials announced Monday that the average premium for basic coverage will increase from about $22 this year to $25 next year. About 24 million elderly and disabled people are enrolled in the drug benefit or in more comprehensive health plans that include drug coverage. The federal government subsidizes the cost of the insurance coverage, with the poorest participants getting extra help. Overall, the monthly premium is still much lower than the $41...

MIAMI - Government forecasters minimally reduced their prediction for the Atlantic hurricane season Thursday, but said that up to nine hurricanes and up to 16 tropical storms are expected to form, still a busier-than-average season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintained its estimate that three to five of the hurricanes will be major storms of Category 3 strength or stronger. The original report forecast up to 17 tropical storms, with up to 10 becoming hurricanes. Despite the slight reductions and a harmless season so far, NOAA said atmospheric and oceanic conditions mean that the season likely will be more...

CONCORD, N.H. - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton is arguing that unsafe bridges, crowded seaports and clogged highways endanger the economy as well as putting the public at risk. Last week's fatal bridge collapse in Minneapolis underscores the critical need for infrastructure improvements nationwide, Clinton said in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday afternoon in New Hampshire. She proposed spending $10 billion over 10 years to repair and upgrade roads, bridges, waterways and seaports. "Something is very, very wrong when, at the dawn of the 21st century, in the richest country on earth, people are actually nervous about driving over...

RENO, Nev. - Nevada is among the states with the most dramatic increase in average temperatures the last 30 years, according to a new study that examines the impact of global warming across the country. The average temperature in Reno from June through August last year was 75.6 degrees, almost 7 degrees above the 30-year average, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group reported. The gap was the biggest measured nationally. Las Vegas' average temperature last summer was 3.6 degrees above the 30-year average from 1971-2000, while Elko's was 4 degrees above normal and Ely's was 2.1 degrees hotter, the report...

Fewer U.S. environmental cops are tracking criminal polluters these days, their numbers steadily dropping below levels ordered by Congress. They are pursuing fewer environmental crimes in a strategy by the Bush administration to target bigger polluters. The number of the Environmental Protection Agency's criminal investigators has dropped this year to 174, below the 200-agent minimum required by Congress, even as the EPA's overall criminal enforcement budget rose nearly 25 percent over three years to $48 million, according to EPA records. An internal memorandum from one of the agency's top lawyers, obtained by The Associated Press, said the EPA is violating...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co. issued a credit card on Wednesday it says will be the first to cut help U.S. cardholders voluntarily cut emissions linked to global warming. The card, called GE Money Earth Rewards Platinum Mastercard, allows users the option of automatically contributing up to one percent of their card purchases to buy greenhouse emissions offsets. In voluntary emissions markets, consumers who feel guilty about their greenhouse emissions can buy offsets, or credits, designed to represent emissions reductions that took place somewhere else, like a solar or wind power farm. "Earth Rewards cardholders will now have...

CHICAGO - Illinois smokers are in for a cold winter. Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed legislation Monday making Illinois the latest state to ban smoking in public places — including bars, restaurants and work places. The law goes into effect Jan. 1. Chicago and dozens of other communities already restrict smoking, but the new law trumps local ordinances that are weaker or that exempt businesses with air filtration systems, state health officials said. Smokers will still be allowed to light up in their homes, cars, at retail tobacco shops, in certain motel rooms and outdoors. If they get caught smoking in...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Low and middle income taxpayers are paying millions of dollars in fees to file their tax returns because of an IRS decision to end a free telephone filing service, an inspector general said Tuesday. "Once again the IRS has made a taxpayer service decision based on questionable data," said J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. George, whose office does independent oversight of the IRS, said about 2 million individual and joint taxpayers used the TeleFile program in 2005, when the IRS, citing declining usage and increasing costs, shut it down. He said about half...