The United States financial system is facing a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the coming years.  Social Security and Medicare are both on the verge of collapse, and both private and public pension funds all over America are massively underfunded.  Now new data is revealing that the number of Americans who have virtually nothing saved up for retirement continues to grow at a rapid pace.  According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual Retirement Confidence Survey, the percentage of American workers who have less than $10,000 saved for retirement has grown to 43%.  The number of American workers who say that they have less than $1,000 saved for retirement has grown to 27%.  But perhaps this should be no surprise considering the fact that tens of millions of Americans are just trying to figure out how to get through each month financially.  After all, it is really hard to plan for retirement when you can barely pay your mortgage.  (Read More.....)

Will the 21 percent cut in Medicare payments coming this month force many doctors to boycott Medicare patients in order to survive? That is a question that thousands of American doctors are pondering as the U.S. Congress deliberates whether or not to allow a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments to go into effect. In fact, the cuts were already supposed to go into effect, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has put a hold for 10 business days on physician Medicare claims, thus giving the U.S. Congress a little bit more time to act. It is thought the the U.S. Congress simply cannot allow these cuts to go into effect, but so far they have not acted. (Read More.....)