Pres. Obama Invokes Personal Anguish About His Grandmother's Death Into HC Reform Debate...Addresses "Death Panel" Claims

MSNBC----


(President Obama narrows his Health Care Reform message to regain control of the debate. MSNBC reports.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - Now, it's personal.

President Barack Obama invoked his own anguish over the death of a loved one as he challenged the debunked notion that Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation's health care would include "death panels."

"I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it's like to watch somebody you love, who's aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that," an impassioned Obama told a crowd as he spoke of Madelyn Payne Dunham. He took issue with "the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma."

"When you start making arguments like that, that's simply dishonest — especially when I hear the arguments coming from members of Congress in the other party who, turns out, sponsored similar provisions," Obama said.

In a debate in which he often sounds professor-like, Obama spoke with a rare bit of emotion that seemed to counter that of vocal health care opponents as he referenced the beloved grandmother who helped raise him and who he called "Toot." She died of cancer at age 86 on Nov. 2, two days before he won election to become the nation's first African-American president.

He talked about her death while answering a question about misinformation being spread about Democratic health care efforts during a town hall-style gathering in a high school gymnasium.

"Health care is really hard. This is not easy. I'm a reasonably dedicated student to this issue. I've got a lot of really smart people around me who've been working on this for months now," he said. "There is no perfect painless silver bullet out there that solves every problem, gives everybody health care for free. There isn't. I wish there was."

Obama addresses debunked claims:

But he said that because there's no perfect solution to solving health care, opponents "start saying things like we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma."

The president is seeking to put to rest claims that the health care overhaul he seeks would set up "death panels" to rule on life-sustaining care for ailing seniors. It would not, and Obama has stressed that point repeatedly over the past week.

Obama reiterated his contention that the Democratic health care legislation would not create "death panels" to deny care to frail seniors. Obama has explained that the provision that has caused the uproar would only authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, living wills, hospice care and other issues, if the patient wants it.

Conservatives have called end-of-life counseling in government health care programs like Medicare a step toward euthanasia and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has likened the idea to a bureaucratic "death panel" that would decide whether sick people get to live. Those claims have been widely discredited but the issue remains a political weapon in the increasingly bitter health care debate.

"I know there's plenty of real concern and skepticism out there," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. "I know that in a time of economic upheaval, the idea of change can be unsettling, and I know that there are folks who believe that government should have no role at all in solving our problems."

Carefully trying not to alienate opponents even while taking them on, he cited "legitimate differences worthy of the real discussion that America deserves." But as Democratic allies face taunts and insults at town hall style gatherings, Obama asked his audience to "lower our voices, listen to one another and talk about differences that really exist."

In the Republicans' address, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch pressed for a bipartisan solution.

"Ensuring access to affordable and quality health care for every American is not a Republican or Democrat issue — it is an American issue," he said.

He said he also encourages a respectful debate, but "there is nothing un-American about disagreements. In fact, our great nation was founded on speaking our minds."

Obama seeks legislation that would provide coverage for millions of uninsured people while controlling costs. Critics say proposals in Congress would spend too much and give government too big a role.

Conservative activists and Obama opponents have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks — and may be outmaneuvering a White House known for its organizational abilities.

In campaign mode, Obama is hosting question-and-answer sessions that proved valuable during the presidential race. The Democratic National Committee and Obama's allies are spending millions on advertising campaigns to influence public opinion, much like they did last year. Associates are going out to make the case. The White House is using Internet tools honed during his groundbreaking bid to rally supporters.

Obama is trying to energize his estimated 13 million grass-roots supporters through his campaign apparatus, called Organizing for America. But there are indications that those who turned out in to help elect Obama aren't doing the same to get a policy passed — evidence of the difficulty in the transition from campaigning to governing.

Advisers encourage grass-roots activists:

In Pittsburgh, Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett told liberal bloggers Saturday at a conference that the president can't accomplish his goal without them. "I cannot say to you how strongly we depend upon you and your outreach and your network to energize people who are on the ground, not just for health care, but for all the tough issues that are lying ahead," she said.

Earlier in the week, White House senior adviser David Axelrod asked supporters to forward a chain e-mail to counter criticism circulating online. The White House also began a "Reality Check" Web site "to help Americans clear up health care lies and misinformation."

Those efforts were reminiscent of the Obama team's attempts during the 2008 campaign to debunk Internet rumors about his faith and upbringing.

The DNC has created a Web video — "What You Won't See on National Cable News" — to highlight civil town hall meetings, and Obama also plans to speak to backers by telephone during a health care event Wednesday.

Over the past week, he has fielded questions from audiences in New Hampshire, and Montana, as well as in Grand Junction. He has faced polite crowds, a stark contrast to the taunts and jeers that Democratic lawmakers have endured at similar sessions during their August break.

Much like in the campaign, Obama is using people's stories to illustrate his points, railing against interest groups and asking supporters to "rise to this moment."

In Grand Junction, he sounded much like a candidate again as he adapted a campaign theme.

He likened the health care effort to policy fights that led to Social Security and Medicare system. "These struggles have always boiled down to a contest between hope and fear," Obama said — a talking point of his candidacy. "So if you want a different future, if you want a brighter future. I need your help."



View Larger Map

Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps

3,300 Lobbyists Are In DC Working For / Against Health Care Reform

Bloomberg, Huffington Post----


If there is any doubt that President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul U.S. health care is the hottest topic in Congress, just ask the 3,300 lobbyists who have lined up to work on the issue.

That’s six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

These groups spent $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group, more than any other industry. They spent $241.4 million during the same period of 2008. Drugmakers alone spent $134.5 million, 64 percent more than the next biggest spenders, oil and gas companies.

“Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for K Street,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based watchdog group, referring to the street in the capital where many lobbying firms have offices.

Stock Prices

Health-insurer and managed-care stocks have gained this year, led by WellCare Health Plans Inc., based in Tampa, Florida; Cigna Corp., based in Philadelphia; and Coventry Health Care Inc., a Bethesda, Maryland, company. The three paced a 13 percent increase in the Standard & Poor’s Supercomposite Managed Health Care Index since Jan. 1. Drugmaker shares have stagnated.

Health-care lobbyists said their efforts are the biggest since the successful 1986 effort to overhaul the tax code. The result is a debate involving thousands of disparate voices, forcing Congress to pick winners and losers.

“There’s a lot of money at stake and there are a lot of special interests who don’t want their ox gored,” Allison said.

The lobbyists are on all sides of the issue. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Washington-based trade group for drug companies such as Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen Inc. and New York-based Pfizer Inc., has embraced a health-care overhaul.

Amgen, Pfizer

Lobbying by Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company, is intended to “effectively shape health-care policy,” said Kelley Davenport, a spokeswoman. Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, is “dedicated to insuring that our voice is heard,” said spokesman Ray Kerins.

The Washington-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, is opposing efforts to offer government- run health insurance to compete with private companies. The chamber spent $26 million in the first six months of 2009 to lobby, more than any other group.

For lobbyists, the goal is to ensure that whatever measure eventually becomes law doesn’t cripple the industry they represent.

“They assume health-care reform is going to happen and they want to be protected,” said John Jonas, a partner with the lobbying firm of Patton Boggs LLP in Washington.

Patton Boggs, the top lobbying firm in terms of revenue, has three dozen clients in the health-care debate, including New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., and Bentonville, Arkansas- based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., more than any other lobbying firm.

Bristol-Myers, Walmart

Brian Henry, a spokesman for Bristol-Myers, maker of the world’s No. 2 best-selling drug Plavix, said the company wants to ensure any legislation preserves incentives for innovation.

“We believe the health-care system needs to be reformed and we’ve specifically supported an employer mandate and cost- containment measures,” said Greg Rossiter, a spokesman for Walmart, the largest U.S. employer.

The lobbyists fill the appointment books of lawmakers, and line up at House and Senate office buildings. The staff of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, rotates weekly meetings among the various groups in the health-care debate, providers one week, purchasers a second, consumers a third.

“We hear from lobbyists all the time,” said Representative Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who heads the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee.

The blitz by lobbyists carries a risk for the public, said Larry McNeely, a health-care advocate with the Boston-based U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

"Drowning Out"

“The sheer quantity of money that’s sloshed around Washington is drowning out the voices of citizens and the groups that speak up for them,” said McNeely, whose group backs a public health plan, which Obama and many Democrats consider a centerpiece of any proposal and most Republicans oppose.

The lobbying push also risks delaying legislation, said Rogan Kersh, associate dean at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.

“That amount of activity is inevitably going to slow down the process,” Kersh said.

The quest for influence isn’t limited to lobbying. Health- care advocates have spent $53 million on commercials, according to Arlington, Virginia-based TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis, which tracks advertising spending.

The health-care industry also contributed $20.5 million to federal candidates and the political parties during the first six months of the year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who is up for re-election next year, received $382,400, more than any other lawmaker.

The number of lobbyists could grow once Congress returns next month and resumes efforts to enact legislation by the end of the year.

“They have just decided this is serious enough and more fully understand the impact it’s going to have,” Jonas said.

Sources: Bloomberg, Huffington Post, Whitehouse.gov, Lefteyeonthemedia, Day Life

The CIA Has Lied To Congress Two Times, Five Times, etc.,....Will Panetta Apologize To Speaker Pelosi?

MSNBC----

(NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports the latest on the feud between House Democrats loyal to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and CIA Director Leon Panetta.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

(Former CIA agent, Jack Rice talks with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann about new Congressional testimony that CIA briefers deceived Congress.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

WASHINGTON - CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that senior CIA officials have concealed significant actions and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001, the chairman and other members of the House Intelligence Committee said in letters revealed Wednesday.

Exactly what actions Panetta disclosed to the House Intelligence Committee on June 24 are unclear, but committee chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said that the CIA outright lied in one case.

"These notifications have led me to conclude that this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one case) was affirmatively lied to," Reyes wrote in a letter Tuesday to Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the committee's senior Republican. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.

Investigation being considered
Reyes said in the letter that he is considering launching a full investigation.

Panetta brought the matters to the committee's attention, CIA spokesman George Little said Wednesday.

"It is not the policy or practice of the CIA to mislead Congress. This agency and this director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta's actions back that up," Little said in a statement to the AP. "It was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees."

Seven Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to Panetta on June 26 asking that in light of his disclosure he revise a statement he made in May to CIA employees that it was not CIA policy or practice to mislead Congress.

The cryptic letter and CIA statement came on the eve of a House debate on an intelligence bill. The debate is expected to revive a partisan argument that has raged on and off for months about whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew in the fall of 2002 about the CIA's use of waterboarding weeks earlier.

Waterboarding is an interrogation technique the CIA used on three prisoners in 2002 and 2003. It is a form of simulated drowning that President Barack Obama has called torture.

Did the CIA lie to Pelosi?

Congressional aides expect much of the debate on the House intelligence bill to be diverted into a discussion of what Pelosi knew about the CIA's harsh interrogation program and why, if she was briefed on it, she didn't formally object to it.

Pelosi told reporters in May she had not been informed that waterboarding had been used against terrorism suspects, even though it had been. When asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying to her, she said, "Yes."

The CIA sent lawmakers a chart in May describing the 40 congressional briefings it gave on the interrogation techniques. But that document was found to include several errors, leaving in question exactly what Pelosi was told.

The GOP seized on her accusation that the CIA misled Congress, contending that the California Democrat's remarks have demoralized the intelligence community. House Republicans have repeatedly demanded that a bipartisan panel investigate her allegations.

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., one of the authors of the June 26 letter to Panetta, said the June revelation to the committee bolsters Pelosi's case.

"If people are saying, 'Heaven forbid the speaker said the CIA deceived Congress' — anyone who has served any time on these committees and is straightforward will say, 'Yes, of course,'" Holt told the AP.

Concerns about compromising security:

House Republicans oppose at least one provision in the intelligence authorization bill, and they have an unusual ally: the White House.

Obama's aides have said they will recommend he veto the bill if it includes a Democratic-written provision requiring the president to notify the intelligence committees in their entirety about covert CIA activities.

Under current law, the president is only obligated to notify the top Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate and the senior Democratic and Republican members on each chamber's intelligence committee.

Democrats want to open the briefings to all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees unless committee leaders agreed otherwise. That would be about 40 lawmakers, depending on shifting membership rosters, instead of the eight required by law.

They claim the Bush administration sought to undermine congressional oversight. However, the White House is concerned that briefing more lawmakers might compromise the most sensitive U.S. intelligence operations.

Sources: MSNBC, Day Life, Zimbio