Obama, Harper stay apart on pipeline issue, ink other agreements
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The visiting Canadian leader and the American president on Wednesday remained noncommittal on a controversial oil pipeline linking the two countries but signed a border deal.
Addressing a joint press conference at the White House, with Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President Barack Obama said, “With respect to the politics, look, this is a big project with big consequences.”
Asking for a assessment for environmental impact, Obama said, “We’ve seen Democrats and Republicans express concerns about it. And it is my job as president of the United States to make sure that a process is followed that examines all the options.”
Harper, on the other hand refused to be drawn into any controversy saying, “You can appreciate that I would not comment on the domestic politics of this issue or any other issue here in the United States.”
Harper added that Obama had an “open mind” on the project, but wanted a full assessment carried out. “He’s indicated to me, as he’s indicated to you today, that he is following a proper (process) to eventually take that decision here in the United States, and that he has an open mind in regards to what the final decision may or may not be,” Canadian leader said about the 1,600-mile pipeline that would run from Canada to the Texas coast.
“My position, the position of the government of Canada on this issue, is very well known,” said Harper, hinting at his backing for the Keystone XL plan, which is projected to create jobs in the U.S. and in Canada and to enable oil from the Canadian province of Alberta to reach the world market.
The two leaders announced signing of a trade deal and perimeter security agreement, which would allow easier access to ports and increase harmonization of security checks and procedures at land borders.
“Together, they represent the most significant steps forward in Canada-U.S. cooperation since the North American Free Trade Agreement,” Harper said.
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Iran, North Korea cloud Obama, Lee interaction with press
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama on Thursday shelved his policy of diplomatic negotiations as he noted his administration’s goal to make “sure that they (Iranians) pay a price,” while seeking to “isolate” Iran — not only over the alleged assassination plot, but over its nuclear program and ties to terrorism.
Addressing a joint press conference with visiting South Korean president Lee Myung Bak at the White House, Obama refused to say explicitly whether he believed Iran’s leaders knew about a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, but the Iranians should be held accountable in any event, reiterated Obama.
“Even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity,” Obama said.
President asserted himself when he replied to one conservative channel correspondent saying, “Well I did not know you were the spokesman for Romney.”
Smiling Obama answered when he was asked if he considered the alleged Iranian assassination plot to be “an act of war.”
The journalist framed his question citing Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney as saying earlier, “what specific steps will you take to hold Iran accountable? Especially when Mitt Romney charged last week, quote, ‘If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President. You have that president today.’”
On the recent nod from U.S. Congress for the free trade agreement with Korea, President Lee said he is confident Korean parliament will ratify the deal soon.
“I am confident that the Korea National Assembly will soon ratify this very important agreement in the near future,” Lee said. “It is a win-win agreement that will benefit both of our economies in countless ways.”
Calling the FTA an “historic milestone,” Lee said the countries have set an example of job creation and economic growth through free trade.
Highlighting the ongoing concern in Europe, Lee noted the global economy’s present challenges, saying, “the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement will demonstrate to the world that we can create good quality jobs and stimulate growth through open and fair trade.”
Obama summed up the agreement effect as, “In short, this agreement will boost American exports by up to $11 billion and support some 70,000 American jobs.”
The occasion was also used by Obama to warn North Korea, saying, “If Pyongyang continues to ignore its international obligations, it will invite even more pressure and isolation.”
“If the North abandons its quest for nuclear weapons and moves toward denuclearization, it will enjoy greater security and opportunity for its people,” Obama offered as a choice for North Korea.
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Document: Obama’s Proposal On Deficit Reduction – Health Care Section
Washington, D.C., United States (KaiserHealth) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday shared his plans to cut the deficit by $4 trillion in 12 years, which, according to a fact sheet distributed by the White House, includes saving $480 billion in health care costs by 2023. Obama proposes holding Medicare cost growth down by strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board and making Medicaid more flexible without using block grants.
Here’s a look at the health care section of the fact sheet, as released by the White House:
DETAILS OF THE PRESIDENT’S FRAMEWORK FOR SHARED PROSPERITY AND SHARED FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
4. Health Care
Medicare and Medicaid Savings of $480 Billion by 2023 and At Least an Additional $1 Trillion over the Subsequent Decade, Providing Better Care at Lower Costs:
Building on the Affordable Care Act, the President is proposing additional reforms to Medicare and Medicaid designed to strengthen these critical programs by reducing waste, increasing accountability, promoting efficiency, and improving the quality of care, without shifting the cost of care to our seniors or people with disabilities.
The framework will save $340 billion over ten years and $480 billion by 2023 (including the proposals already included in the President’s Budget). This framework includes the same aggregate savings that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan proposed in his November 2010 plan with Alice Rivlin and an amount sufficient to fully pay to reform the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) physician payment formula while still reducing the deficit.
Over the subsequent decade, the President’s proposal will save well over $1 trillion by further bending the cost curve, doubling the savings from the Affordable Care Act.
The President’s framework offers a stark contrast with the House Republican plan that would increase seniors’ health costs by $6,400 annually starting in 2022, raise health insurance premiums for middle-class Americans and small businesses, cut Federal Medicaid spending by one-third by the end of the decade, and increase the number of uninsured by 50 million.
The President’s framework proposes specific reforms to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid over the long term, including:
Addressing the long-term drivers of Medicare cost growth: The President’s framework would strengthen the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) created by the Affordable Care Act. The IPAB has been highlighted by economists and health policy experts as a critical contributor to Medicare’s solvency and sound operations. Under the Affordable Care Act, IPAB analyzes the drivers of excessive and unnecessary Medicare cost growth. When Medicare growth per beneficiary exceeds growth in nominal GDP per capita plus 1 percent, IPAB recommends to Congress policies to reduce the rate of growth to meet that target, while not harming beneficiaries’ access to needed services. Congress must consider IPAB’s recommendations or, if it disagrees, enact policies that achieve equivalent savings. If neither acts, then the Secretary of Health and Human Services would have to develop and implement a proposal to achieve the savings target.
The President’s framework will strengthen IPAB to act as a backstop to the other Medicare reforms by ensuring that Medicare spending growth does not outpace our ability to pay for it over the long run, while improving the program and keeping Medicare beneficiaries’ premium growth under control. Specifically, it would:
Set a new target of Medicare growth per beneficiary growing with GDP per capita plus 0.5 percent. This is consistent both with the reductions in projected Medicare spending since the Affordable Care Act was passed and the additional reforms the President is proposing.
Give IPAB additional tools to improve the quality of care while reducing costs, including allowing it to promote value-based benefit designs that promote proven services like prevention without shifting costs to seniors.
Give IPAB additional enforcement mechanisms such as an automatic sequester as a backstop for IPAB, Congress, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Reforming the Federal-State partnerships to strengthen Medicaid and promote simplicity, efficiency, and accountability: Under current law, States face a patchwork of different Federal payment contributions for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The President’s framework would replace the current complicated Federal matching formulas with a single matching rate for all program spending that rewards States for efficiency and automatically increases if a recession forces enrollment and State costs to rise.
In addition, the President has called on the National Governors Association (NGA) to make recommendations for ways to reform and strengthen Medicaid, and the framework will consider the ideas that its Task Force produces. The President also supports reform of Medicaid to incentivize more efficient, higher quality, care for high-cost beneficiaries, including those who are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare. These nine million beneficiaries comprise 15 percent of Medicaid enrollment but consume nearly 40 percent of total Medicaid spending.
Improving patient safety: Together with employers, States, hospitals, physicians and nurses, the Administration has launched a new public-private partnership called Partnership for Patients that will help improve the quality, safety and affordability of health care for all Americans. The two goals of this new Partnership are: preventing patients from getting injured or sicker while they are in the hospital and helping patients heal without complication. Achieving the initiative’s goal would mean more than 1.6 million patients will recover from illness without a preventable complication, reducing costs by up to $50 billion in Medicare and billions more in Medicaid over the next 10 years.
Cutting unnecessary prescription drug spending: The framework would limit excessive payments for prescription drugs by leveraging Medicare’s purchasing power – similar to what was called for by the bipartisan Fiscal Commission. It would speed up the availability of generic biologics, and prohibit brand-name companies from entering into “pay for delay” agreements with generic companies. And, it would implement Medicaid management of high prescribers and users of prescription drugs.
Reducing abuse and increasing accountability in Medicaid and Medicare: The framework would clamp down on States’ use of provider taxes to lower their own spending while not providing additional health services through Medicaid; recover erroneous payments from Medicare Advantage; establish upper limits on Medicaid payments for durable medical equipment; and take other actions to improve program integrity.
A major contrast with the House Republican approach. The President’s framework rejects plans that would end Medicare as we know it or transform Medicaid into a dramatically underfunded block grant, putting at serious risk not only seniors but also the most vulnerable children and people with disabilities. Some of the major problems with the House Republican approach include:
The House Republican plan does nothing to reduce health costs. Instead it actually increases costs by doing nothing to reform the way health care is delivered in addition to putting a larger fraction of the burden on beneficiaries and States.
In the first year the Republican plan goes into effect, a typical 65-year-old who becomes eligible for Medicare would pay an extra $6,400 for health care, more than doubling what he or she would pay if the plan were not adopted.
States would get one-third less for Medicaid by 2021, potentially leaving 15 million people without coverage, including seniors in nursing homes, people with disabilities, children and pregnant women.
The House Republican plan would no longer guarantee the same level of benefits and choices that seniors have today in Medicare, because the proposal allows private health plans to determine benefits, raise cost sharing, and limit choice of doctors and hospitals.
– Provided by Kaiser Health News.
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Mexico reconsiders strategy to oppose state illegal immigration laws
Atlanta, GA, United States (AHN) – The Mexican government is revising its policy of opposing U.S. state laws designed to crack down on illegal immigration. The Mexican ambassador to the United States met this week in Atlanta with Mexican consulate officials from states with some of the toughest laws and proposed legislation against illegal immigration.
“The objective was to review and strengthen the strategy displayed by the government of Mexico to defend the fundamental rights of our citizens against state and local initiatives that are contrary to their rights and interests,” a Mexican Embassy statement said.
The embassy has not yet announced how its policy will change but left little doubt it would reflect growing outrage in Mexico against state laws intended to exclude illegal immigrants.
The embassy said there were a “disturbing number of initiatives under discussion unduly stigmatizing and blaming migrants for social problems in America.”
President Barack Obama pledged again this month to reform immigration laws.
Nevertheless, three state legislatures have approved laws against illegal immigration in the past year and other state laws are pending.
One proposal in Congress would change the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. Current federal law grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
Arizona started the trend in state initiatives against illegal immigration by approving a law in April 2010, S.B. 1070, that authorized local police to stop and question anyone they suspected of being an illegal immigrant. If they could not prove American citizenship, the local police could arrest and deport them.
Until then, enforcement of immigration laws was authorized exclusively by federal agencies.
Houses of the Georgia and South Carolina legislatures approved similar laws in recent months. They are awaiting final approval and their governors’ signatures.
Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas and Utah are considering other proposals against illegal immigration.
State Rep. Matt Ramsey, a Republican who sponsored the Georgia legislation, said, “The federal government’s failure to secure our borders serves as an open invitation for illegal immigration. The employers who encourage and reward illegal immigration are certainly not blameless.”
The Georgia law would require employers to verify the citizenship of all job applicants through the E-Verify database and broaden authority of police to investigate the immigration status of anyone they stop.
Last summer, a federal judge suspended enforcement of most of the Arizona law.
In each case, the laws are meeting with anger in Mexico that culminated in the meeting this week in Atlanta.
The meeting included representatives from the Mexican consulates in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando, Raleigh and other Mexican diplomats. It was led by Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States.
So far, the Mexican strategy for influencing U.S. immigration has been to seek out sympathizers among business, religious, academic and community leaders.
The Mexican government also has supported litigation against the state laws, provided legal advice to Mexicans in the United States and disseminated public information about the negative effects of anti-immigrant laws.
Mexican diplomats describe the laws as racist.
“The most serious, if approved and entered into force, would violate inalienable human rights protected by international legal provisions enshrined in the U.S. Constitution,” said the Mexican Embassy statement this week.
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President paints stark picture of state of the union
Barack Obama painted a stark and, at times, grim picture of the challenges facing the US, in education, infrastructure and politics, in an address to Congress leavened with an uplifting appeal to American traditions of innovation, risk-taking and public service
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Obama administration relaxes travel restrictions to Cuba
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The White House continues to relax restrictions against the communist Cuban regime. President Barack Obama has directed officials to allow more flights to Cuba, and will let students and religious groups travel to the island.
According to the Oval Office, “these measures will increase people-to-people contact; support civil society in Cuba; enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people; and help promote their independence from Cuban authorities.”
Americans will also be able to donate more money to Cubans on the island. The new rules will allow for businessmen to send $500 per quarter to non-family members in Cuba.
However, many Cuban-American refugees aren’t happy with the plan, which they say only allows more U.S. dollars into the island, propping up the regime of President Raul Castro, the younger brother of Cuban revolutionary and long-time Washington rival Fidel Castro.
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) is a refugee from Castro’s Cuba. Born in Havana, Ros-Lehtinen is now the most senior female Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, and chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She has been outspoken in her support for the U.S. embargo against Cuba, which she says will help bring down the communist government and return rule of law to the island.
Ros-Lehtinen believes the changes undermine American efforts to isolate Cuba, and won’t help foster freedom on the island.
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President Obama appoints economy team, welcomes jobs report
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Jobs was the word to watch as President Barack Obama on Friday announced his economic team while touring a window manufacturing company that has benefited from his administration’s economic policies.
Addressing more than 100 workers at the Thompson Creek Window Co. in Landover, MD, Obama said, “Government can’t guarantee Thompson Creek or any business will be successful, but government can knock down barriers like a lack of affordable credit or high costs for investment or high costs for hiring.”
“Incentives like these are helping companies across America,” the president commented, adding “The jobs numbers released this morning reflect that growth. The economy added more than 100,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell sharply.”
According to the White House, the company has benefited from tax credits since 2009 and expanded. It also has plans for a major modernization and more new hiring, on top of a 40 percent growth in the workforce in 2010.
Defining his administration’s mission as “to accelerate hiring and to accelerate growth,” Obama added, “And that depends on making our economy more competitive so that we’re fostering new jobs in new industries, and training workers to fill them.”
Continuing the “‘major retooling” of his administration to reach these goals, the president announced his economy team, calling them “men and women who will help America fulfill in this mission.”
Obama announced appointment of Gene Sperling as director and Jason Furman as principal deputy at the National Economic Council while Heather Higginbottom got the post of deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.
In addition, Katharine Abraham was named to the Council of Economic Advisers.
Earlier, during a tour of the window company, Obama stopped at a window framing station.
The president donned safety glasses, saying “so that I don’t violate the law” and watched four workers in blue company T-shirts emblazoned with “Home Sweet Thompson Creek,” frame windows.
Further along the way, Obama stopped at a fusion welder and watched a woman put the side frames for a window into the welder, which then did the rest.
Holding the finished product briefly, Obama smiled and laughed. The tour did not last more than six minutes in all.
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Traveling to Kenya, paternal home of President Obama? U.S. warns you!
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Department of State on Tuesday issued a travel warning to U.S. citizens cautioning of the risks of travel to Kenya.
“U.S. citizens in Kenya and those considering travel to Kenya should evaluate their personal security situation in light of continuing threats from terrorism and the high rate of violent crime,” said the warning note.
“This designation is based on reports of Somali-based armed groups known to have crossed into Kenya to stage attacks or to commit crimes,” the State Department stated.
Kenya, the homeland of U.S. President Barack Obama’s late father, is struggling to overcome political and tribal divisions laid bare after disputed December 2007 presidential elections.
Obama visited Kenya three times, most recently very briefly in 2006, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid an official visit in 2009 during her Africa trip.
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President Obama departs for vacation in Hawaii
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama departed for his holidays in Hawaii on Wednesday evening after wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.
The First Family left for Hawaii left last week and the president stayed back to take care of the official business that lawmakers were considering.
At a hurriedly called press conference, Obama called the usually known “lame duck session” of the legislatures as “the most productive post-election period we’ve had in decades,” adding, “and it comes on the heels of the most productive two years that we’ve had in generations.”
Obama concluded his media rendezvous, saying, “I want to wish you all a merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. See you in 2011.”
President Obama shook hands and wished Merry Christmas to all journalists and cameramen, present at the departure point on the lawns of the White House.
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Obama lambastes lawmakers for shattering Dream Act
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama on Saturday expressed disappointment over the Senate rejecting the DREAM Act, calling it “an incredibly disappointing vote,” as the vote denies an opportunity for children brought to the U.S. illegally a chance at residency if they attend college or serve in the military.
The Senate voted 55-41 Saturday morning in support of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act. However, the vote was five votes too few to break a filibuster.
“Our nation is enriched by their talents and would benefit from the success of their efforts,” noted Obama in a statement, adding, “The DREAM Act is important to our economic competitiveness, military readiness, and law enforcement efforts.”
Citing the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office report, the president said, “the DREAM Act would cut the deficit by $2.2 billion over the next 10 years. There was simply no reason not to pass this important legislation.”
Obama vowed to continue efforts to streamline the American immigration system. “My administration will not give up on the DREAM Act, or on the important business of fixing our broken immigration system,” he said.
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