Politics Today: Insurance Industry Turns on Health Reform
Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:
** Dems keep up support for the mission in Afghanistan...
** The insurance industry takes on the Senate Finance Committee's health bill...
** What the 2009 gubernatorial races say about Obama...
5356466PRESIDENT OBAMA: On this Columbus Day, Mr. Obama has no public events scheduled. This week's highlights: Wednesday, the President meets again with his national security team on Afghanistan and Pakistan before attending a D.C. fundraiser for the Boston-based institute named after the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. On Thursday, the president travels to New Orleans, for a town meeting, followed by a DNC fundraiser in San Francisco.
McClatchy Newspapers' Margaret Talev, "Obama to visit New Orleans for a post-Katrina survey"
On Friday, Mr. Obama will get together with former president George H.W. Bush, and participate in a Presidential Forum on community service at the George Bush Presidential Library Center on the campus of Texas A&M University.
5374308AFGHANISTAN: "Lawmakers on Sunday carried on the debate about strategy in Afghanistan, voicing wide support for the mission despite wariness among some Democrats over any large increase in U.S. troops there," writes the Wall Street Journal's Neil King Jr.
"Legislators across a broad political spectrum, speaking on Sunday news shows, agreed the U.S. couldn't turn away from the eight-year war and must continue to go after the Taliban as the government strives to build up the fledgling Afghan military. Many Democrats in Congress have become increasingly leery of sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, while recent polls have found slumping support for the war among voters.
"'A new strategy is even more important than new resources,' said Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' He said he isn't convinced that additional U.S. troops are the answer. His advice to President Barack Obama: 'Don't send more combat forces, but focus on the Afghan army and send in more trainers.'…
"Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, speaking on CNN's 'State of the Union,' warned against what he called "a half measure" in which the Obama administration tries 'to please all ends of the political spectrum.' The senator, a strong supporter of the 2007 U.S. military surge in Iraq, said the U.S. must take a similar approach in Afghanistan."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., "said he hopes President Obama listens to the suggestions of Generals Petraeus and McChrystal to send additional combat troops to the region to continue the counterinsurgency strategy focusing both on al Qaeda and the Taliban," adds CBS News' Michelle Levi. "'Our generals have told us the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated,' he said. 'I think we need to take this very, very seriously.'
"He added that if President Obama were to come to Congress asking for approval to send an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, he will be met with 'overwhelming' Republican support. '[T]his is not just about nation building,' McConnell told ['Face the Nation' moderator Bob] Schieffer. 'This is about protecting the United States of America. We know that we can't have a haven over there for the reconstitution of al Qaeda.'"
"'We didn't have the ability to defend them, and now the base is closing, and effectively we're retreating away from it,' she said."
Meantime, the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler report, "Civilian Goals Largely Unmet in Afghanistan": "Even as President Obama leads an intense debate over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, administration officials say the United States is falling far short of his goals to fight the country's endemic corruption, create a functioning government and legal system and train a police force currently riddled with incompetence…
"Afghanistan is now so dangerous, administration officials said, that many aid workers cannot travel outside the capital, Kabul, to advise farmers on crops, a key part of Mr. Obama's announcement in March that he was deploying hundreds of additional civilians to work in the country. The judiciary is so weak that Afghans increasingly turn to a shadow Taliban court system because, a senior military official said, 'a lot of the rural people see the Taliban justice as at least something.'
CBS News' Scott Pelley, "Afghanistan: Tough Mission for Marines": "60 Minutes and correspondent Scott Pelley saw how tough it is when we spent three weeks with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines regiment. They're part of the 21,000 reinforcements ordered over the last several months by President Obama. The new plan, called counter-insurgency, sounds simple: separate the enemy from the people, then convince the Afghans to support their government. But it requires more forces, more time and more risk."
5339106HEALTH CARE: "After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected," reports the Washington Post's Ceci Connolly. "The critique, coming one day before a critical Senate committee vote on the legislation, sparked a sharp response from the Obama administration. It also signaled an end to the fragile detente between two central players in this year's health-care reform drama.
"Industry officials said they intend to circulate the report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers on Capitol Hill and promote it in new advertisements. That could complicate Democratic hopes for action on the legislation this week.
"Administration officials, who spent much of the spring and summer wooing the insurers, questioned the timing and authorship of the report, which was paid for by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an industry trade group. 'Those guys specialize in tax shelters,' said Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform. 'Clearly this is not their area of expertise.'"
"After working for months behind the scenes to help shape health care reform, the insurance industry is now sharply attacking the emerging plan with a report that maintains Senate legislation would increase the cost of a typical policy by hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars a year," adds the Associated Press' Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar. "A spokesman for Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., whose 10-year, $829 billion overhaul plan faces a final Finance Committee vote Tuesday, was quick to react Sunday, questioning the credibility of the industry's late-in-coming cost estimate. 'It's a health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple,' said the spokesman, Scott Mulhauser.
"The health insurance industry has been working until recently to help draft legislation, while publicly endorsing President Barack Obama's goal of affordable coverage for all Americans. The alliance has grown strained as legislation advances toward votes in Congress."
5339587Los Angeles Times' Kim Geiger, "About Tuesday's healthcare vote, and what comes next": " The vote is expected to fall along party lines, except perhaps for Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a moderate Republican who could support the bill. ... What happens next? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada will attempt -- with input from the White House -- to reconcile the Finance Committee bill with a more liberal bill passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Provisions of the Finance bill are expected to remain largely intact because it addresses revenues and taxes in a way the other bill does not. The goal will be to fashion a bill that can attract at least 60 votes on the Senate floor, enough to ward off a Republican filibuster."
Boston Globe's Lisa Wangsness, "Health plan's effect on costs may be slight": " Despite repeated promises by President Obama and Democratic leaders that their health care overhaul would lower costs, the proposals before Congress would probably not cut overall US health care spending significantly anytime soon, health policy specialists say.
"The bills under construction, which will be the focus of congressional attention this week, include many incremental or slowly phased-in programs designed to eliminate waste and reward quality and efficiency. But they stop short of such bold cost-cutting moves as aggressively overhauling the way care is organized and doctors and hospitals are paid, or investing intensively in finding the best treatments for diseases and tying the results to reimbursements. Nor do they give people with employer-sponsored insurance the chance to comparison-shop for the best insurance deals and pocket any savings."
USA Today, "If a health bill passes, benefits not immediate": "Under Democratic bills being considered, federal tax credits to help make health insurance affordable for millions of low- and middle-income households won't start until 2013. Medicare cuts and a sizable chunk of the tax increases to pay for the changes kick in immediately.
"Health care experts allied with Democrats are concerned that opponents of these changes could undermine what would be an achievement for Obama. 'Just as we are fending off ideological attacks to get the bill passed, we will be fending them off as we implement the law,' said Judy Feder, a health official in the Clinton administration. Peter Harbage, a Democratic health policy consultant, said 'there needs to be more focus on what can you do quickly so that real people will start seeing change sooner, rather than later.'"
McClatchy Newspapers' Halimah Abdullah, "Rural hospitals fear health care overhaul won't help them"
"There are two big elections in 2009 — the contest for governor here and one in New Jersey where Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, is struggling to survive in a spirited three-way race.
"Off-year elections are prone to overinterpretation, and governor's races tend to be determined by the quality of the candidates and local issues rather than national politics; overcrowded highways are the biggest topic this year in Virginia.
"For all that, Virginia, a laboratory for many of the ways Mr. Obama tried to change the ideological appeal and tactics of his party, is looming as an early if imprecise test of this president and his policies. It is measuring the ability of Mr. Obama to build a coalition and hold it together during tough political battles in Washington. It could be an early gauge of whether Mr. Obama and his party have now taken political ownership of the rising unemployment rate and the continued sense of economic anxiety that he used a year ago to the advantage of Democrats. Most ominously, it is signaling the problem Democrats might have in the midterm Congressional elections next year with independent voters, upset with Mr. Obama over increasing deficits and his advocacy of big-government programs."
New York Times' David M. Halbfinger, "Independent Candidate Stirs Up the Governor's Race in New Jersey": "While the Democratic governor, Jon S. Corzine, and the Republican candidate, Christopher J. Christie, appear to be turning off voters with nasty ads and personal attacks, Mr. Daggett is turning them on — or at least persuading them to give him a closer look. After he showed up his rivals in the first debate, his campaign is causing concern in both parties. His plan to cut property taxes is getting attention. His poll numbers are climbing. And on Sunday, he won a rousing endorsement from New Jersey's largest and most influential newspaper, The Star-Ledger of Newark."
Newark Star-Ledger's endorsement of Daggett
Newark Star-Ledger's Ted Sherman, "N.J. gubernatorial candidates Gov. Corzine, Christie get campaign funds from special interests": "Special interests and those with a personal stake in the outcome continue to play a large role in the support of both of the top candidates, even with the governor largely paying for his own campaign and Christie opting for public financing."
Wall Street Journal's Naftali Bendavid, "Pelosi Key to GOP 2010 Playbook": "Republicans are stepping up attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, deciding that a major part of their 2010 electoral strategy will be linking Democratic candidates to her. ... Republicans tried to stanch their party's bloodletting in 2006 by linking Democratic candidates to the San Francisco lawmaker, who appeared on track to become speaker if the Democrats retook the House. Last year, Ms. Pelosi was already speaker, but her party didn't also control the presidency. Now, with Democrats holding huge congressional majorities and with Barack Obama in the White House, Democrats are more easily tied to just about anything coming out of Washington. Thus Republicans are betting that voters now associate the House speaker with policies that make them uncomfortable, like generous government spending and a cap-and-trade system for fighting global warming."
New York Times' John Harwood, "Democrats Must Attack to Win in 2010, Strategists Say": "Now that Democrats control the White House, Congress and most governorships, voters' discontent with the status quo represents their burden, which has Democratic strategists considering tactics to push back challengers. 'Very often the instinct for an incumbent party is to defend and justify,' said Geoff Garin, a pollster for Democratic candidates. 'But in this kind of environment, the best defense is a good offense. This needs to be a cycle where Republican vulnerabilities are a central part of the debate.' Charlie Cook, the nonpartisan political handicapper, framed the Democrats' challenge for 2010 more bluntly. It does not track the genial, new-politics identity that President Obama has cultivated. 'They're going to have to play really rough,' said Mr. Cook, who pegs Democrats' chances for holding the House next year at only slightly better than even. 'For the average Democratic Congressional incumbent, the opposition researcher will be the most important person in the campaign.'"
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