Morning News
November 19, 2009
From the New York Times:
Democratic leaders in the Senate on Wednesday unveiled their proposal for overhauling the health care system, outlining legislation that they said would cover most of the uninsured while reducing the federal budget deficit.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said at an evening news conference that the legislation, embodying President Obama’s signature domestic initiative, would impose new regulations on insurers, extend coverage to 31 million people who currently do not have any and add new benefits to Medicare.
Mr. Reid said the bill, despite a price tag of $848 billion over 10 years, would reduce projected budget deficits by $130 billion over a decade because the costs would be more than offset by new taxes and fees and by reductions in the growth of Medicare.
Democrats expressed confidence that they would have the votes needed to move forward when the legislation hits its first test in the Senate, probably later this week. To get past that first procedural hurdle, Mr. Reid will need the votes of all 58 Democratic senators and the two independents aligned with them.
From the Wall Street Journal:
U.S. President Barack Obama pledged Thursday morning to ratify a free-trade agreement with South Korea that has been stuck for two years, challenging the U.S. Congress to separate South Korea from other Asian nations enjoying vast trade surpluses with the U.S.
He also said the U.S. and its allies will draft a package of sanctions "over the next several weeks" to show an intransigent Iran "the importance of having consequences…"
The free-trade agreement, the largest the U.S. has negotiated since the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in the early 1990s, is expected to boost that more than $80 billion in annual two-way trade between South Korea and the U.S. by $10 billion to $20 billion about five years after ratification. U.S. food producers and auto makers stand to gain the most because Korean trade barriers are currently high in those markets.
From Bloomberg:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled an $849 billion health-care plan that would create new government competition for private insurers, cover almost all Americans and raise a payroll tax on the highest earners.
Reid’s proposal, the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health system in four decades, cleared a major hurdle when the Congressional Budget Office said it would cut the federal budget deficit by $127 billion in the first decade. That met a standard set by President Barack Obama and allows Reid to seek a vote as early as Saturday to open the way for Senate debate.
“This legislation is a tremendous step forward,” Reid told reporters at the Capitol last night. “Tonight begins the last leg of this journey…”
“We’re closer than ever to enacting solutions to these problems,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House. “I look forward to working with the Senate and House to get a finished bill to my desk as soon as possible…”
“We are now down to the week we have been waiting for,” Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy told reporters. “This is not just a matter of months in the waiting, this has been decades in the waiting.”
President Barack Obama said Thursday the United States has begun talking with allies about fresh punishment against Iran for defying efforts to halt its nuclear weapons pursuits.
Obama’s tough talk came as Iran indicated it would not ship its low-enriched uranium to Russia for processing, the centerpiece of deal aimed at a peaceful resolution to Iran’s contested nuclear program.
"They have been unable to get to `yes’, and so as a consequence, we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences," Obama said in a brief news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak…
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