doughnut hole (gap in Medicare drug coverage)

[Charles Doyle]

I don't know how old or how widely applied it is, but there's another use of "doughnut" that I've been noticing for the past several years:  Demographers, election analysts, et al. refer to the band of suburbs and small cities (largely white, affluent, and politically rightish) circling metropolitan Atlanta as "the doughnut."  The radius of the "hole" is perhaps 8 or 10 miles, of the doughnut itself maybe 30 or 40 miles.

Where would our langauge and our culture be without doughnuts!

--Charlie
_____________________________________


---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:56:11 -0400
>From: Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>Subject: doughnut hole (gap in Medicare drug coverage)
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>
>The Medicare "doughnut hole" is in the news these days...
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/24/AR2006092400957.html
>
>I see Congressional debate about "the hole in the doughnut/donut" from
>2001 and "the doughnut/donut hole" from 2002.
>
>
>www.senate.gov/~finance/032201tntest.pdf
>"Improving Prescription Drug Coverage: Opportunities and Challenges
>for Reform", Hearing on Prescription Drugs and Medicare Financing,
>Senate Finance Committee, Mar. 22, 2001
>The "Hole in the Donut": Many proposals would cover expenses up to a
>specified amount, but leave a gap in coverage between the benefit
>limit and the level of drug expenditures required to qualify for
>catastrophic protection.
>
>CongressDaily, Mar. 22, 2001 (Factiva)
>Another Republican acknowledged today that the $153 billion President
>Bush set aside in his budget for a Medicare prescription drug benefit
>would not be enough. "Everybody knows that figure is gone," Energy and
>Commerce Chairman Tauzin told reporters at a briefing. The number, he
>said, was set before CBO re-estimated last year's House bill, which he
>said is "already over $200 billion and climbing." At the same time,
>Tauzin said he wants to build on the proposal the House passed last
>year. "Everybody agrees there's a problem with the hole in that
>doughnut," he said, referring to the several-thousand dollar gap
>between the drug expenses the bill would cover initially and the
>"catastrophic stop loss" amount above which insurance would pay the
>full cost.
>
>Gannett News Service, June 9, 2002 (Factiva)
>The term "doughnut hole" isn't new to the Medicare prescription drug
>debate, but it is about to get a lot more attention. As its name
>implies, the doughnut hole offers air where cake should be. In this
>context, the missing ingredient is money for Medicare beneficiaries to
>help pay for drugs their doctors prescribe.
>
>Boston Globe, June 13, 2002, p. E4 (Nexis)
>Worse, seniors under the GOP bill would have to cover costs between
>$2,000 and $5,600 - a wide gap that Democrats describe as seniors
>getting "more doughnut holes than doughnut."
>
>St. Petersburg Times, June 18, 2002 p. 3A (Nexis)
>The most controversial part of the Republican plan is a gap in the
>federal coverage of drug costs. Critics refer to the gap as the
>"doughnut hole," and five seniors groups said they would hand out
>doughnuts in the Capitol today to demonstrate their opposition.
>
>CongressDaily, June 12, 2003 (Factiva)
>"We shouldn't call it the doughnut. Nobody at home knows what the
>doughnut is. They think we're having coffee." - Senate Finance member
>Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., speaking Tuesday on legislators' shorthand
>for the coverage "gap" in the Medicare drug benefit proposed by
>Finance Chairman Grassley and ranking member Max Baucus, D-Mont. The
>gap is often referred to as the "doughnut hole" because the benefit
>provides coverage for expenses at the top and bottom of the spending
>spectrum, but not the middle.
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org