The idea of a supplement to Social Security seemed to fit with President Reagan's preference for private-sector solutions to social problems.

And today's problems - and their private-sector solutions - are quite different from those of that era.

Modern microfinance emerged in the 1970s with a strong orientation towards private-sector solutions.

The distinction between using taxpayer funds and inducing an industry to borrow against its own resources in order to provide a private-sector solution should not be blurred or lost.

Generally, we want to provide private-sector solutions to public health programs.

Officials of the Health Insurance Association of America have been warning that the private-sector solution being debated would be difficult to achieve.

The truly needy are much poorer than that, and critics say that private-sector solutions don't help them much.

The new strategy follows other Giuliani administration proposals that look for private-sector solutions to government problems.

That is mainly, they say, because none of the other possibilities, like a government-run plan or some new private-sector solution, have enough support to serve as a replacement.

Another, at a different pharmaceutical company, said, "Gilmartin wrapped himself in some clever rhetoric of private-sector solutions, and it used to drive us crazy."