the real take-home-pay replacement rate that workers receive is already below 40 percent. ... Benefit reductions in a system that's already parsimonious is not desirable.

[Where the competition crowd sees opportunity and potential savings, the traditionalists see potential problems. One is that Medicare recipients might have a difficult time sorting through a smorgasbord of plans with different prices and services.] You're talking about a lot of 85-year-olds among whom the incidence of mental impairment may be as high as one-third and disabled people with a variety of difficulties, ... That's a minority [of Medicare recipients], but still a sizable group that needs help choosing insurance.

Workers are being enticed with six weeks in, and a two-week period home, with the expenses being paid back home,

We're not miracle workers. But can take away some of their worries and turn them into the home they've always wanted.

I don't believe there were any case workers checking in with this family.

Home is the wallpaper above the bed, the family dinner table, the church bells in the morning, the bruised shins of the playground, the small fears that come with dusk, the streets and squares and monuments and shops that constitute one's first universe.