A bipartisan group of Senate negotiators led by Finance Chairman Max Baucus is signaling that a final Senate healthcare reform package may not include a government-run public option. The news is generally portrayed as a setback for President Obama, who has pushed for a public option, and did so yesterday again. The ongoing negotiations are also portrayed as creating difficulties for the White House, which is seen as caught between conservative Democrats and more liberal lawmakers.
ABC World News reported that "Senate Democrats are now on the verge of a deal that would do away with a central feature of the President's plan, and that's the creation of a government-run insurance program to compete with private insurance companies." The AP says Obama faces "a difficult choice: He can give ground, and implore disappointed liberals to go along with him. Or he can try to ram through a Democratic bill with his wishes intact, infuriating Republicans."
The Hill, meanwhile, reports that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs "said the administration would 'certainly take a look at' the co-op idea, but said it was 'a little premature' to talk about reconciling the two conflicting bills." McClatchy similarly reports that the idea of a public option, "beloved by...Obama and liberal Democrats," is "losing important political momentum."
The Los Angeles Times says many Democrats "have indicated they would settle for nothing less" than a public option, but the Finance negotiators are "leaning toward cooperatives, saying that alternative could offer customers more choice without enlarging the government's role in the healthcare market." The Washington Post says an "emerging consensus" among the six Senate Finance members "is poised to shift the dynamic in the congressional debate over health-care reform, and could lead to a final product that sheds many of the priorities that President Obama has emphasized and that have drawn GOP attacks."
The Wall Street Journal reports liberals "who see the effort to overhaul health care as a once-in-a-generation opportunity are growing anxious that a final deal -- and a Democratic president they backed -- will negotiate away their top priority." Some Democrats "are threatening to oppose any bill that excludes" a public option. The Hill reports "centrists and liberals are clashing" over the public option issue.
Howard Dean, guest-hosting MSNBC's Countdown, contended that the Senate Finance Committee has "already done most of the Republicans' dirty work for them ... As it stands now, the so-called compromise bill would have no public option, no employer mandate."
Medicare Commission Advances, But AMA Objects The AP reports a bipartisan group of senators "agreed tentatively Tuesday on a plan to squeeze an additional $35 billion out of Medicare over the next decade and larger sums in the years beyond." The plan would create an independent commission "empowered to recommend changes in Medicare annually, to take effect automatically unless Congress enacted an alternative."
But the Wall Street Journal reports the American College of Surgeons said it "would 'vigorously oppose' legislation that gave an unelected executive agency power to set Medicare rates," while the American Medical Association "said a commission shouldn't be authorized to set Medicare payment rates for physicians."
During an AARP online forum, President Obama yesterday continued to defend the need for reforming the US healthcare system. While overshadowed by coverage of the Senate healthcare talks, reports on the story run in several major newspapers. The coverage tends to cast seniors as skeptical about the President's plans. "Polls," says the Washington Post, "show that senior citizens are more skeptical about health-care reform than any other age group." ABC World News, the only network newscast to mention story, noted the President's "sales pitch to an AARP online forum" in its preface to a report on the healthcare reform Senate talks. The Hill notes that during the forum, "Obama defended his push for a new public health insurance plan Tuesday, just as key senators were considering leaving it out of their health reform bill."
The Washington Post says Obama "took an unusually personal approach, recounting the experiences of his mother and grandmother to argue that 'we could just be doing better.'" AFP says the President "expressed rare frustration at the resistance he is facing in his efforts to overhaul the US healthcare system."
Roll Call reports, "Obama worked through just about every major argument being made against his health care initiative: He denied charges that it was an attempt to 'socialize' medicine or that it would lead to rationing of care, and he rejected arguments that it would bust the federal budget." The Financial Times, meanwhile, reports that Obama "appears unlikely to achieve his objective of passing a muscular healthcare reform bill in the House of Representatives before its summer recess begins on Friday."
On its website, U.S. News and World Report reports that "Senate Republicans beat President Obama to the punch. Just hours before he planned to hold an online healthcare town hall with AARP members, the Republicans told Whispers that they have already talked to 1.3 million Americans in their own nightly healthcare town halls."
Obama Asked About End-Of-Life Provisions Fox News' Special Report noted that the President "was asked about a provision of a healthcare reform bill being considered in the House." The question was, "I have been told there is a policy in there that everyone that is Medicare age will be visited and told to decide how they wish to die." Fox said Obama "was reassuring," and the President said, "Nobody is going to be forcing you to make a set of decisions on end of life care based on some bureaucratic law in Washington." Fox, however, noted that the House bill "would allow Medicare to pay for counseling on end-of-life issues, but it doesn't require them."
Also on Fox News' Special Report, The Hill's A. B. Stoddard said of the end of life counseling issue is "politically untouchable. It is the ultimate frightening rationing scenario, and this will be pounded on by Republicans during the August break, and if you think the House bills are looking unpopular now, they're going to look much worse mid-September."
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The AP reports the meeting between Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge police officer James Crowley for beer at the White House "will offer upbeat footage for the nightly news. A pool of White House reporters will be able to see the men together and capture that image, but the meeting itself will be private." Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "I think it'll be a poignant moment." McClatchy says that the White House spokesman "likes to use quips or one-liners to try to divide or distract the press corps from tough questions during his daily briefings," but he "bristled a little when CBS' Chip Reid today teasingly said he had a follow-up question about the 'beer fest.'"
Last night, NBC Nightly News reported that "regarding preferences, Professor Gates reported to be a Red Stripe man, Crowley is "said to be partial to Blue Moon, and the White House isn't talking about the President's brand of choice. That might constitute, you see, a White House endorsement."
The Christian Science Monitor says "the president's picnic table diplomacy speaks to Mr. Obama's ability to leave behind his often-professorial persona and connect with the American people, political experts say."
Whalen To Hold Press Conference Today The AP reports, "The woman whose 911 call led to the arrest of a Harvard scholar at his home and a national debate on racial profiling plans to speak publicly for the first time." Whalen "plans a news conference Wednesday in Cambridge because she wants to get on with her life."
Colin Powell "Mildly Critical" Of Gates The AP reports former Secretary of State Colin Powell "was mildly critical" of Gates, "whose angry response to a Cambridge, Mass., police officer touched off a national debate involving President Barack Obama." On CNN's Larry King, Powell "criticized the way Gates dealt with...Crowley," saying, that Gates "might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer, and that might have been the end of it."
Fox News' Beck: Obama Has "Deep-Seated Hatred For White People Or White Culture" The AP reports Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck "said he believes...Obama is a racist." Beck "made the statement during a guest appearance today on the 'Fox & Friends' morning show. He said Obama has exposed himself as a person with 'a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.'"
More Commentary. Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, who introduced a House resolution calling on Obama to apologize to Sgt. Crowley, said, "I think it's very important that the principle remain in place. As the President announced himself, he had a friend involved who he was biased to. He didn't have a complete grasp of the facts, and nevertheless he prejudged a private citizen's...actions as being inappropriate."
Thomas Frank writes in the Wall Street Journal, "The essential point about Gates-gate, or the tempest over" the arrest "is this: Most liberal commentary on the subject has taken race as its theme. Conservative commentators, by contrast, have furiously hit the class button."
In a Philadelphia announcement that generated heavy local media coverage nationwide, Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder unveiled $1 billion in stimulus grants to local law enforcement agencies through the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. The AP reports Biden and Holder praised the program, designed "to keep cops on the streets" as "a heavenly blessing in places like tiny Anguilla, Miss. -- while New York City and other places that got nothing cursed their luck." Biden and Holder said the funds would be "sent to places with the highest crime rates and the biggest budgetary problems."
The Wall Street Journal reports that the administration "almost immediately got flak" about leaving New York City off the grants list. "The Big Apple's police force, the largest in the nation, isn't getting a dime of the money set aside in the $787 billion stimulus plan to help employ extra officers. Guam will get more, as will smaller cities in upstate New York."
However, the New York Times reports, "Just hours after New York City officials announced that they had been left out of one program to funnel federal money to police departments around the country, it was revealed that the city would receive even more money than they had already been counting on, from a different source." Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is scheduled to announce today "that the city will receive about $35 million in federal stimulus money that it can use to hire police officers."
DNC To Tout Stimulus Effects With TV, Radio Spots The Politico reports that the Democratic National Committee, pushing back "against Republican charges that President Obama's stimulus package has been ineffective," is "launching a three-pronged attack this week focused on projects being funded in the states and districts of the GOP's congressional leadership." Democrats "are going on the air Thursday with TV and radio spots aimed at three GOP House leaders and two Senate Republican leaders and will hold press conferences or conference calls in their states with individuals testifying to the effectiveness of the stimulus."
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Roll Call reports Republicans "have a historic opportunity to pick up" the former Senate seats of President Obama and Vice President Biden. In Illinois, after Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) "took a pass" on the race and Rep. Mark Kirk (R) jumped in, GOP "chances improved dramatically." In Delaware, state Attorney General Beau Biden (D) "is expected to run for his father's seat once he returns from active duty in Iraq." If Rep. Mike Castle (R) enters the race, it "might be one of the best GOP takeover opportunities in the country. Without him, it's not even competitive."
The Washington Times reports Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd And Kent Conrad said yesterday "that they knew they got low mortgage-rate deals in a lender's VIP program but thought the special treatment was a 'courtesy' or the same as 'frequent flier' discounts. Both vehemently denied any wrongdoing or ethical lapse" in the deal. According to Roll Call, the Senate Ethics Committee "is aggressively investigating whether" Conrad and Dodd "received preferential mortgage treatment...with sources saying the inquiry could come to a conclusion in the near future."
The Politico reports another poll shows New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) is "still in deep political trouble. The Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling's new survey shows Republican Chris Christie leading the embattled Democratic governor 50 to 36 percent with 14 percent undecided." That is a "larger deficit for Corzine than the last time PPP polled the race in June." The poll also shows Corzine's approval rating down slightly at 33%, while Christie's approval rating has risen slightly to 43%.
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Conan O'Brien: "Some people now are saying, this is true, that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wants to host her own TV show. ... The show is going to be called 'Am I More Coherent Than a Fifth Grader?'"
Conan O'Brien: "President Obama, of course, everyone knows, has invited Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and the police officer who arrested him to the White House for a beer. ... Of course, this could be trouble, because the last time Obama got a few beers in him, he bought General Motors."
Jimmy Fallon: "President Obama invited Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates and Sergeant James Crowley to the White House for a beer this Thursday. It's all part of Obama's new approach to diplomacy, 'How would they handle this on 'Cheers.'"
Jimmy Kimmel: "Who watched the season finale of 'The Bachelorette' last night? .... It came down to a choice between computer consultant Ed and in a surprise twist, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who gets around."
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