Joan Beck

Q. What do smokers get out of that highly touted $206 billion tobacco settlement? A. An increase of about 45 cents in the price of a pack of cigarettes, for...

Along with the forest of mail-order catalogs and a blizzard of holiday cards, the pre-Christmas mail brings burdens of cleverly crafted guilt. How can you toss away those appeals for...

It will eventually look like a giant Lego assembled by a careless child, orbiting Earth at 220 miles out in space. It may turn out to be little more useful....

As we gather together to count the Lord's blessings, 377 years after the first Thanksgiving Day, we are grateful, Dear God, for the Israeli-Palestinian accord if it lasts and the...

President Clinton had little to worry about when he signed the Kyoto global warming treaty last week. He gets points for seeming to be environmentally correct. But he won't have...

(This memo may, or may not, be in President Clinton's "In" basket in the Oval Office.) To: Bill Clinton From: Creative Retirement Planners Inc. Chances are, Mr. President, that impeachment...

At least 96 HMOs in 30 states are dumping Medicare patients on Jan. l, leaving almost half a million elderly people to find some other means of health care. The...

Don't call it "affirmative action." That term confuses many people, who assume it means leveling the playing field and ending racial discrimination against minorities, especially African-Americans, a goal with which...

"Now this matter is between me, the two people I love most--my wife and our daughter--and our God. . . . It is private and I intend to reclaim my...

The Senate is deadlocked over the controversial patients' rights legislation. Medicare is facing serious financial problems. Forty-three million Americans still lack health insurance. Reports are increasing of abuses by HMOs...