A steep tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products will go into effect today. ...more

April 1, 2009

I have been in management at Premier Community HealthCare Group for about four years, and each day I hear about the devastating effects that being uninsured has on the well-being of people in our community. As the economy worsens and more and more Americans lose their jobs, the number of uninsured is soaring. ...more

March 28, 2009

Josh Nochimson, the former University of Connecticut student manager turned sports agent, paid several thousand dollars for a surgery on UConn recruit Nate Miles in December 2007 in Tampa, the Tampa Tribune and Tampa's 1010 CBS Sports Radio reported. ...more

March 27, 2009

A Hillsborough County lawmaker said today that healthcare programs for the aged, disabled and working poor will not be cut despite a $3.4 billion state budget deficit in the coming fiscal year. ...more

March 26, 2009

Nicotine fiends who make it a habit to roll their own butts and save a few bucks will see their savings go up in smoke Wednesday when a new federal excise tax on tobacco kicks in. ...more

March 26, 2009

The first opinion column, published under this scribbler's name, ran in a Georgia paper about 35 years back. It was a commentary countering a continually popular, liberal-belief that large segments of the population need government financial assistance to merely exist. ...more

March 21, 2009

Santiago Carrasco, store manager of Tobacco Depot on Bloomingdale Avenue, said that about the time gas hit $4 a gallon, smokers with pipe dreams about saving a few bucks came in packs to his store to ask how – and how much it would cost - to roll their own cigarettes. But the do-it-yourself department that has been positively smokin' for some eight months is about to be extinguished, he said. An enormous price increase in conjunction with the federal excise tax that takes effect April 1 has already begun to snuff it out. ...more

March 20, 2009

Surely we care about the nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance because of circumstances beyond their control. What about the deterrent effect on potential entrepreneurs? Corporations want to get out of the business of providing health insurance for employees in order to be more competitive. Our costs are the highest in the world. ...more

March 17, 2009

Regarding "Health Coverage For All" (Letters, March 13): ...more

March 15, 2009

Distribution of the free Coast2Coast prescription discount card, issued in the name of Highlands County, began this week. ...more

March 12, 2009