Actuarial status of the HI and SMI Trust Funds

This article is adapted from a summary of the 1984 annual reports of the Medicare Board of Trustees. It presents the actuarial status of the Hospital Insurance (HI) and the Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Funds. Although the Social Security Amendments of 1983 have made the HI program potentially less vulnerable to excessive rates of growth in the hospital industry by providing the Secretary of Health and Human Services some discretion over the level of payments to hospitals, the Board found the financing schedule for the HI program barely adequate to ensure the payment of benefits through the end of this decade if the assumptions underlying the estimates are realized. The Board found the SMI program to be financially sound, but it noted with concern the rapid growth in the cost of the program and the extent to which general revenues have become SMI's major source of financing. For both HI and SMI, the Board recommends that Congress consider ways to curtail the rapid growth in program costs.     

Drinking and driving in Singapore, 1987 to 1989.

Between 1987 and 1989 there were approximately 5,000 cases of fatal and injury-sustained road traffic accidents, of which 2.3-3.0% were alcohol related (blood alcohol levels greater than the legal limit of 80 mg% ethanol). The offenders of alcohol-related accidents are mostly Chinese (> 79%), male (> 98%), and more often 30-40 years old. The majority of the alcohol-related accidents (> 74%) took place between 8 P.M. and 4 A.M. in fine weather and light traffic. Rear-end, head-on, and side-on collisions comprised > 60% of all the alcohol-related accidents, and losing control of vehicles approximately 30%. Drunken driving cases for the same period that were not accidents showed a number of characteristics similar to those for accidents. In Singapore, motorcycle riders and pedestrians are more prone to road fatality than other road-user groups. International comparisons of road fatalities per 100,000 population gave Singapore one of the lowest accident rates (8.1-8.4) as compared with countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan.     

Woman abuse in university and college dating relationships: The contribution of the ideology of familial patriarchy

Several theorists contend that male university/college students who physically, sexually, and psychologically abuse their female dating partners are more likely than men who are not abusive to adhere to the ideology of familial patriarchy. These scholars also argue that men who hold familial patriarchal attitudes and beliefs, and who are supported by their male peers, are most likely to victimize their dating partners. This research provides quantitative data from a national representative sample of Canadian male undergraduate students that support these hypotheses. This study was sponsored by a grant from the family Violence Prevention Division, Health and Welfare Canada The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Health and Welfare Canada.