Montana town hall: Obama seeks out skeptics

President Obama on Friday took his push for a health care overhaul to traditionally conservative Montana, saying a bill to extend coverage to the uninsured while helping those already with coverage will pass this year.

However, an influential Democratic representative said the House would only pass a health care bill in January or later, signaling continuing rifts within Obama's party on his domestic priority for 2009.

"We're taking some time to make sure it's done right," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania. "I don't know that we'll get something done before January, and even then we may not get it done. We're going to do it right when it's finally done."

President Obama discusses his health care plans Friday at a meeting in Belgrade, Montana.

Obama told a largely supportive Montana audience at his second of three town hall meetings this week that fixing the health care system requires improving health insurance practices and reducing the costs of treatment. He sought questions from skeptics of his proposed health care overhaul, seeking to confront some misconceptions fueled by opponents Democrats say are undermining the debate.

One man who identified himself as a proud National Rifle Association supporter and believer in the Constitution asked how the government would pay to expand health insurance coverage to 46 million uninsured people.

"You can't tell us how you're going to pay for this," said the questioner, Randy Rathie, a welder from Ekalaka, Montana. "The only way you're going to get the money is to raise our taxes. That's the only way you can do that."

Obama responded with his oft-repeated explanation that two-thirds of the cost of overhauling health care -- estimated at about $900 billion over 10 years -- would come from eliminating waste and improving efficiency in the current system, which includes the government-run Medicare and Medicaid programs for the elderly and impoverished.

The rest would have to come from new revenue, he agreed with the questioner, and he called for reducing the amount of deductions that people making more than $250,000 a year can make on their income taxes.

"If we did that alone, just that change alone ... that would raise enough to pay for health care reform," Obama said, noting that would meet his election campaign pledge to avoid any tax increase on people earning less than $250,000 a year.

However, Obama said some taxes would have to be raised, and the crowd applauded when he said he believes people with more money, like himself, ought to pay a heavier burden.

"We've got to get over this notion that we can have something for nothing," Obama said. "That's how we got into this deficit and this debt in the first place."

In reference to emotional and heated debate at some other town hall meetings across the country in recent weeks, Obama told Rathie, "I appreciate your question, the respectful way you asked it, and by the way, I also believe in the Constitution."

Afterward, Rathie said he was impressed by Obama's performance but remained skeptical.

"I don't think he knows where that money's going to come from," he said. "If he does, he's not saying."

Obama noted there is more work to be done, with Congress seeking to merge at least four bills, along with a possible compromise agreement being negotiated by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus and five other members of his Senate Finance Committee, into a single bill in September.

Another questioner chosen when Obama asked for a skeptic identified himself as an insurance provider who wanted to know why Obama and Democrats are vilifying the insurance industry in the health care debate. Earlier in the meeting, Obama described what he called discriminatory practices by insurance companies that dropped coverage of people who became sick or refused to cover those with pre-existing medical conditions.

Obama noted some insurance companies are contributing to the reform debate, but said others are spending millions of dollars to try to defeat any health care legislation. For a health care overhaul to work for everyone, he said, it has to ensure all Americans are covered so that insurance companies have incentive to participate.

They won't be able to exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions or "cherry pick" healthy people while refusing coverage for sick people, Obama said, so increasing the total numbers covered will be the enticement.

On Saturday, Obama will hold another town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado, before vacationing in some national parks with his family next week. In addition, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama will hold "some events not yet announced" in coming days.

While Obama has said consensus can be reached on health care reform, contentious town hall meetings held by lawmakers around the country have created a different impression.

The White House, and many Democrats in Congress, hope that by building support in the West, the president can start to turn the tide. Though the region is largely Republican, Obama made some inroads in the latest election. He won in Colorado and lost by just a slim margin in Montana.

However, Murtha's comments in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania, to CNN affiliate WJPA signaled continuing divisions among House Democrats over the scope and pace of health care legislation.

"We said to the speaker [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi], the leadership, let's not rush this thing," Murtha said. "Let's do it right, so we'll have a uniquely American plan, if the thing passes."

Obama's town hall events are just part of a larger Democratic strategy for winning support in the region.

The Democratic National Committee began a TV ad this week promoting the president's health care plan. A committee spokesman said the ad will run on national cable as well as on local cable in New Hampshire, Montana, Colorado and the District of Columbia.

The group Families USA, which supports the president's plan, also launched a campaign Thursday that includes an ad running in a dozen states -- among them Montana and Colorado.

But groups opposed to the president's plan have their own campaigns.

One voter in Livingston, Montana, not far from where the president spoke in Belgrade, summarized the kinds of concerns that she and many others in the region have.

"I believe that there is a health care crisis, I really do," Sonja McDonald, who voted for Obama in 2008, told Ed Henry on Thursday. "Do I believe that the government needs to be more involved? No!"

Henry met McDonald at a clinic that gets half its funding from taxpayers.

"The government being involved is fine," McDonald said. "It's just ... when they try and overstep, when they try to say, 'No, this is what needs to be done.

Health care Conference; hurting Obama

The national health care debate is taking a toll on President Obama's popularity as his poll numbers have hit a new low

the president wraps up his two-day visit to Guadalajara, Mexico, where he's taking part in a summit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"President Barack Obama's first North American summit is proving it's a lot easier to agree on battling a killer flu virus than to untangle knotty disputes over cross-border trade," writes the Associated Press' Mark S. Smith. "Obama flew into Mexico's second-largest city late Sunday for a two-day speed summit ... a meeting whose main accomplishment will likely be a joint plan of attack for swine flu.

"But there was little chance of any breakthrough in long-running squabbles over Mexican trucks, or U.S. 'Buy American' rules or how best to curb the deadly flow of drugs across the frontier.

"The so called 'Three Amigos' summit began over dinner at an ornate cultural center here and was to conclude a mere 17 hours later at a joint news conference."

"President Obama arrived here Sunday on his second official visit this year and quickly headed for a 45-minute meeting with his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon," report the Los Angeles Times' Peter Nicholas and Tracy Wilkinson from Guadalajara, Mexico.

"In the session, which one senior U.S. official called 'cordial,' Calderon broached the U.S. ban on Mexican truckers, which has sparked punitive action by Mexico and cries of protectionism…

"As for Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is displeased with 'Buy American' provisions in the stimulus bill Obama signed into law in February. And Canada and Mexico are sparring over Ottawa's requirement that visitors from Mexico obtain visas -- triggering a retaliatory requirement that officials working in Mexico for Canada also acquire visas."

"The North American Leaders' Summit is an annual gathering for the presidents of the United States and Mexico and the prime minister of Canada to work collaboratively on issues such as border security, immigration reform and economic recovery," adds the Washington Post's Cheryl W. Thompson. "It is Obama's second visit to Mexico since he became president and his second meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is scheduled to visit the White House next month. Obama and Harper met in Ottawa in February and agreed to work together to fight the global economic recession."

Swine Flu News by BBC UK

Build Trust on U.S. vaccine by experts

When advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration met to discuss a new vaccine against H1N1 swine flu last week, some of the biggest critics of vaccination were not only in the room, but at the table.

Likewise for a meeting on Wednesday of advisers who decide who will be first in line to get the vaccine, which drug companies are racing to make, test and distribute all within the space of a few weeks.

Registered nurse Vicky Debold, on the board of the National Vaccine Information Center, which questions vaccine safety, is also a member of the FDA's Vaccine and Related Biological Advisory Committee. The group's founder, Barbara Loe Fisher, asked extensive questions at the meeting.

Lyn Redwood, president of SafeMinds, a group that advocates about potential links between mercury and neurological disorders, asked questions at a meeting on Wednesday of vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. federal government is more ready than it has ever been for questions, criticisms and fear of vaccines -- a state of preparedness more than 30 years in the making.

"We know that there are some people who are reluctant to vaccinate and they have heard information that concerns them," Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters late on Wednesday.

The concerns:

*Will a vaccine against a swine-like virus cause more adverse reactions than a seasonal flu vaccine?

*Will special additives called adjuvants cause reactions?

*Will the vaccines contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that critics say might cause problems?

*Is it dangerous to vaccinate against both seasonal flu and the new H1N1 flu at the same time?

QUICK SPREAD

H1N1 swine flu has swept around the world in weeks, infecting millions and killing more than 800 by official counts. While only a "moderate" pandemic by World Health Organization standards, it could worsen as temperatures cool in the Northern Hemisphere, making conditions better for viruses.

Five companies are making H1N1 vaccine for the U.S. market -- AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit, Australia's CSL Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG and Sanofi-Aventis SA.

CSL has started trials of its vaccine in people and the U.S. National Institutes of Health starts trials next month. They will compare vaccines with and without adjuvants -- ingredients that boost the immune system response to a vaccine.
Adjuvants are used in flu vaccines in Europe but not the United States and although it would be possible to get a U.S. license under Emergency Use Authorization, officials have chosen to use vaccines without it for now.

Companies such as Glaxo say they will be ready to start vaccinating people in Europe just as the first data from those trials start emerging at the end of September. Some have questioned this speed.

The FDA's Dr. Hector Izurieta said the agency had set up an exceptionally extensive network for what is known as post-marketing surveillance.

"If something happens after vaccination, the vaccine will be accused," Izurieta told last week's meeting. "There will be many, many reports of things that could be, or not, associated with vaccination."

Vaccine regulators and public health experts are painfully aware of the last swine flu vaccination campaign. In 1976, the U.S. government rushed out a mass immunization against a swine flu virus that never spread off one military base.

Several hundred cases of a rare, paralyzing neurological disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome were reported afterward and although no clear link has ever been found to the vaccine, the incident made many people mistrustful of immunizations.

More recently, fears center on thimerosal, taken out of most vaccines after activists claimed it could cause autism -- a link discredited by many scientific studies but one that some vocal activists say is still valid.

Instead of fighting the perception, Schuchat said the CDC will roll with it. "There will be thimerosal-free formulations available for those people who are interested in that sort of preparation," she said.

Obama doesn’t want to pull plug on grandma

This just in: President Barack Obama opposes pulling the plug on your sick grandmother.

In a sign of how twisted the healthcare debate has become, the president of the United States was forced to stand up in public and say definitively that he did not favor killing off the elderly when their care became too expensive.

The dramatic declaration came in New Hampshire in response to one of the wilder accusations circulated by opponents of his efforts to overhaul healthcare.

“The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that it’s too expensive to let her live anymore,” Obama said, taking the issue head-on.
It apparently arose from a provision intended to give people more information so they could handle end-of-life issues like setting up living wills and hospice care, he said.

“Somehow it’s gotten spun into this idea of death panels,” Obama said. “I am not in favor of that.”

He did not mention Sarah Palin, former Republican vice presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska, who got the ball rolling on ”death panels.”

The fact that the president had to take a public stand on a rumor that at another time might appear absurd (it would be political suicide for anyone to suggest the government promote euthanasia) shows that the opposition is making inroads in stoking fear about healthcare overhaul.

Obama used some scare tactics of his own, saying that unless things change, health insurance premiums would skyrocket and the deficit would grow because of rising costs of government health programs for the poor - Medicaid - and elderly - Medicare.

One thing to watch is Obama’s increased reference to the healthcare plan as “health INSURANCE reform,” perhaps the White House believes that substituting insurance for care somehow makes it more palatable to the public.

Do you think Obama effectively addressed the criticism and put the rumors to rest? Did his comments in any way change your view on the healthcare debate?

Obama strategy will win Afghan war : White House

The White House said on Monday that President Barack Obama has a "winning" strategy in Afghanistan and enough forces on the ground to achieve U.S. goals despite advances by the Taliban.

The assurances came as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan warned that the Taliban were gaining momentum, while gunmen and bombers stormed government buildings near Kabul just 10 days before a presidential election,

White House spokesman Bill Burton said that Obama had authorized 21,000 new troops for Afghanistan since taking office in January and not all of these were on the ground yet.

"The president's strategy hasn't fully been implemented just yet. But we do believe that with the strategy that we have, with assets that we're putting on the ground, that we are going to be able to achieve the goals that we're trying to achieve," Burton told reporters on Obama's Air Force One flight back to Washington from a North American summit in Mexico.

U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, who will soon present an assessment of the Afghan war, said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that the resurgent Taliban have forced a change of tactics on foreign forces and that record casualty figures would remain high for some months.

"It's a very aggressive enemy right now," McChrystal, who is also the NATO commander in Afghanistan, told The Wall Street Journal (online.wsj.com/). "We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work."

The White House said McChrystal was preparing a thorough assessment of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and U.S. officials will see what his review turns up.

"Obviously the president is in close contact with his commanders on the ground, but ... thinks that the strategy that he put in place is a winning one," Burton said.

Violence across Afghanistan this year had already reached its worst levels since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-led Afghan forces in 2001 and escalated dramatically after major offensives were launched in southern Helmand province in July.

Three Afghan police and two civilians were killed in a strike by Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers on government buildings near Kabul on Monday.

Washington plans to increase the number of its troops to about 68,000 by year's end, more than double the 32,000 it had stationed in Afghanistan at the end of 2008. McChrystal may ask for more after he submits his strategy review in coming weeks.

Jobless rate eases(reduce), Payrolls fall less in July

The U.S. unemployment rate fell in July for the first time in 15 months as employers cut far fewer jobs than expected, providing the clearest sign yet that the economy was turning around.

Employers shed 247,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said Friday, the least in any one month since last August, taking the unemployment rate to 9.4 percent, down from 9.5 percent in June.

"It suggests the recession will be ending before the end of the year. There isn't any part of the economy that hasn't shown some slowing in deterioration," said Joe Davis, chief economist at Vanguard in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Recent data ranging from home sales to manufacturing have pointed to an economy starting to dig itself out of one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The fall in the jobless rate will be good news for President Barack Obama, who has seen his standing in public opinion polls slip as Americans fret about the weak economy and high unemployment.

The White House warned it would be "quite some time" before the economy saw sustained job growth, adding it still believed the jobless rate would hit 10 percent this year.

U.S. stocks and the dollar rose on the data as investors sensed the recession was ending. Safe-haven government bond prices tumbled.

Analysts had expected non-farm payrolls to fall by 320,000 in July and the jobless rate to hit 9.6 percent. The forecast was made earlier this week before other jobs data prompted some analysts to lower their estimates for job losses.

The government revised job losses for May and June to show 43,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported.

The easing in the unemployment rate could have been the result of the labor force shrinking by 422,000 in July, far more than the 155,000 decline in June, suggesting jobless workers may have given up looking for new work.

In the U.S., for the purpose of calculating the unemployment rate, the labor force is defined as those with a job plus those out of a job but actively looking for work.

The small decline in July non-farm payrolls was a welcome reflief as some employment indicators released this weak had raised the risk of a big rise in the numbers of jobless.

Slowing job losses could also mean less pressure for a second government economic stimulus as a $787 billion package approved this year slowly works its way into the economy.

"This is another indication that the economy is on an improving track and a confirmation that we're going to see a positive GDP number for the third quarter...," said Robert Dye, senior economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh.

While employers cut fewer jobs than forecast in July, unemployment remains stubbornly high, meaning households have less income to spend. This could set the economy for an anemic recovery, analysts said.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the economy has shed 6.7 million jobs, the Labor Department said, adding that the number of long-term unemployed continues to rise.

However, in a sign that the labor market deterioration was slowing, a gauge of labor market slack that measures both the unemployed, people working part-time for economic reasons, and those only marginally attached to the labor force, fell to 16.3 percent in July from a record high 16.5 percent in June.

Job losses in July were spread across all sectors, but the pace of firings slowed markedly from previous months.

Manufacturing employment fell by 52,000 after shrinking by 131,000 in June. This was the first time since last September that manufacturing job losses were less than 100,000 and was probably due to the re-opening of General Motors and Chrysler assembly plants after the two automakers emerged from bankruptcy.

"Because layoffs in auto manufacturing already had been so large, fewer workers than usual were laid off for seasonal shutdowns in July," Labor Commissioner Keith Hall said, adding that the seasonally adjusted gain did not indicate an improvement in the industry.

Payrolls in construction industries slipped 76,000 after falling 86,000 in the previous month, likely reflecting spending on infrastructure projects from the government's $787 billion stimulus package and a modest pickup in ground breaking for new homes.

In the services sector, 119,000 workers were laid off, and the goods-producing industries lost 128,000 positions.

Education and health services continued to add jobs though, with payrolls increasing 17,000 in July after rising 37,000 in June. Government employment increased 7,000 after slipping 48,000 in June.

The closely watched average work week, the total amount of labor input, inched up to 33.1 hours in July after having slipped to 33.0 in June. The average work week in the manufacturing sector rose to 39.8 hours from 39.5 hours in June, the department said.

Average hourly earnings increased to $18.56 in July from $18.53.