By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer

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Fri Mar 19, 10:51 pm ET

WASHINGTON – It was a bold response to skyrocketing health insurance premiums. President Barack Obama would give federal authorities the power to block unreasonable rate hikes.

Yet when Democrats unveiled the final, incarnation of their health care bill this week, the proposal was nowhere to be found.

Ditto with several Republican ideas that Obama had said he wanted to include after a televised bipartisan summit last month, including a plan by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to send investigators disguised as patients to hospitals in search of waste, fraud and abuse.

And those “special deals” that Obama railed against and said he wanted to eliminate? With the exception of two of the most notorious — extra Medicaid money for Nebraska and a carve-out for Florida seniors faced with losing certain extra Medicare benefits — they are all still there.

For the White House, these were the latest unfulfilled commitments related to Obama’s health care proposal, starting with his campaign promise to let C-SPAN cameras film negotiations over the bill. Obama also backed down with little apparent regret on his support for a new government-run insurance plan as part of the legislation, a liberal priority.

But was it all the president’s doing?

In the cases of the insurance rate authority, the Republican ideas and the special deals, it came down to Obama making promises that Congress didn’t keep. He can propose whatever he wants, but it’s up to Congress to enshrine it into law.

Arguably, the president could have foreseen that outcome, and was making a low-risk p.r. move by floating proposals — dismissed by critics as insubstantial anyway — whose demise he couldn’t be blamed for.

While the White House worked hard to trumpet Obama’s plans for the rate authority, his embrace of bipartisanship and his opposition to special deals, the administration hardly advertised the lack of follow-through. Understandable, certainly, but perhaps not the new way of doing business that Obama promised to bring to Washington.

Removing the special deals ran into opposition from powerful lawmakers including Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Max Baucus, D-Mont. The rate-limiting authority and the Republican ideas were left out of the legislation because the bill is going to be considered under special filibuster-proof Senate rules that prohibit provisions that don’t have a budgetary impact, and those ideas don’t fit in.

“There are a number of proposals that the president wanted to incorporate into the legislation including additional Republican proposals, but the parliamentarian ruled against allowing those proposals to be included,” said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin. “We would like to enact those proposals in separate legislation in the coming months. In the meantime, some important Republican measures remain.”

Of the four main Republican ideas Obama endorsed, only one made it into the final bill — a proposal embraced by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa to bump up payments to primary care physicians under Medicaid. A proposal to expand the use of health savings accounts was rejected out of hand by congressional Democrats, while a plan to increase funding for medical malpractice reform projects was also determined to be undoable under fast-track Senate rules.

Coburn’s spokesman, John Hart, complained that Democrats “found time to buy votes with earmarks but couldn’t include bipartisan ideas endorsed by President Obama.” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, had dismissed the GOP ideas Obama endorsed as “bread crumbs” sprinkled atop the health bill — and now even most of those bread crumbs are blown away.

At the same time, Baucus got to keep a provision to give Medicare benefits to asbestos-sickened residents of Libby, Mont., and Dodd still has one that could result in a new hospital being built at the University of Connecticut. Both senators argue their special deals aren’t really special deals, because the Medicare provision could apply to other places where public health emergencies are declared, and other sites outside of Connecticut could be eligible for the hospital.

Most of the provisions of the health care bill don’t kick in until 2014, so Obama still has time to make good on everything he promised — or try to get Congress to do so.

“To hold the president accountable for every single provision he advocates for is simply unreasonable,” said Alec Vachon, a health policy consultant and former Republican Capitol Hill aide. “Some things aren’t in there because the members of Congress who have the votes don’t want it. Some things aren’t in there because congressional rules which Republicans will be enforcing won’t allow it. But Democrats will have three years to tinker with health reform before universal coverage goes live.”

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and DAVID ESPO, Associated Press Writers Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar And David Espo, Associated Press Writers

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1 hr 16 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Claiming unstoppable momentum but still short of the goal line, President Barack Obama is heading to Capitol Hill to rally House Democrats for a final push on landmark health care legislation.

The battle tilted in Obama’s direction Friday as more Democrats revealed their positions. But with a hardly a vote to spare, the divisive issue of how to keep federal funds from being used to pay for abortions emerged once again as a potential last-minute obstacle.

With the showdown vote set for Sunday in the House, Obama decided to make one final, personal appeal to rank-and-file Democrats, arranging a visit to the Capitol Saturday afternoon. Republicans, unanimous in opposition to the bill, complained anew about its cost and reach.

Under a complex — and controversial — procedure the Democrats have devised, a single vote probably will be held to send one bill to Obama for his signature and to ship a second, fix-it measure to the Senate for a vote in the next several days.

Democratic leaders and Obama focused last-minute lobbying efforts on two groups of Democrats, 37 who voted against an earlier bill in the House and 40 who voted for it only after first making sure it would include strict abortion limits that now have been modified.

Leaders worked into Friday night attempting to resolve the dispute over abortion. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who succeeded last November in inserting strict anti-abortion language into the House bill, hoped to do so again. That prospect angered lawmakers who support abortion rights.

“We’re not going to vote for a bill that restricts a woman’s right to choose beyond current law,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., as she left an evening meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Abortion opponents are divided over whether restrictions on taxpayer funding currently in the bill go far enough.

Stupak — with eight Democrats and one Republican as co-sponsors — introduced a resolution Friday that would insert his abortion restrictions as a “correction” to the underlying bill. That would add new complications to the already complex strategy Democrats are pursuing to pass the bill, requiring additional floor votes on a highly charged issue.

Stupak and his backers are hoping they have enough leverage to force the leadership to yield to their demand. “I think the vote count has always been close,” said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., a co-sponsor of Stupak’s resolution.

Yet, the vote count was breaking in Obama’s favor Friday.

Reps. John Boccieri of Ohio, Scott Murphy of New York and Allen Boyd and Suzanne Kosmas of Florida became the latest Democrats to announce support for the bill after voting against an earlier version that passed last year, bringing the number of switches in favor of the bill to seven.

On the other side of the ledger, Reps. Michael Arcuri of New York and Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts became the first Democratic former supporters to announce their intention to oppose the bill. Lynch said he did so despite a telephoned appeal from Vicki Kennedy, whose late husband, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, championed health care for decades.

Rep. Anh Cao of Louisiana, the only Republican to support the earlier measure, has also announced his opposition.

The sweeping legislation, affecting virtually every American and more than a year in the making, would extend coverage to an estimated 32 million uninsured, forbid insurers to deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and cut federal deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade.

Congressional analysts estimate the cost of the two bills combined would be $940 billion over a decade.

For the first time, most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, and they would face penalties if they refused. Billions of dollars would be set aside for subsidies to help families at incomes of up to $88,000 a year afford the cost. And the legislation also provides for an expansion of Medicaid that would give government-paid health care to millions of the poor.

Republicans resorted to unusually personal criticism in their struggle against the bill, calling Kosmas a “space cadet” after she announced her position and labeling Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire a “drama queen” for waiting to announce his opposition.

One day after Democrats released 153 pages of revisions to their bill, they were back at it, responding to fresh concerns from some of the rank and file about disparities in payment levels to Medicare providers in different areas of the country.

“I’m a ‘no’ unless they fix it,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. “We spent months working this out. If we don’t get it in this bill, we will never get it.” Pelosi said changes were in the works.

Republicans said, as they have from the outset, that Democrats were angling for a government takeover of health care. They also said the cost of the bill would be covered by $900 billion in higher taxes and cuts in future Medicare payments.

“This bill requires 10 years of tax increases and 10 years of Medicare cuts just to pay for six years of supposed benefits, many of which don’t even go into effect until 2014,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said in the Republican’s weekly radio and Internet address. “That’s not reform.”

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Associated Press writers Erica Werner, Alan Fram and Chuck Babington contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

GOP address: http://tinyurl.com/ychfv5q

By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press Writer

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39 mins ago

RAMALLAH, West Bank – U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Saturday got a closer look at what has emerged as a main obstacle to restarting Mideast peace talks — Israeli settlements on Palestinian-claimed land.

Ban was escorted to a West Bank observation point by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

From the hill on the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, the U.N. secretary-general was able to see the sprawling Israeli West Bank settlement of Givat Zeev, home to 11,000 Israelis who live in rows of red-roofed houses. The panorama also included Jewish neighborhoods in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, the Israeli-annexed sector the Palestinians claim as a future capital.

From his vantage point, Ban saw Israel’s separation barrier — part fence and part cement slabs — snaking through the landscape, as well as a walled Israeli prison camp for Palestinians arrested by Israeli troops.

The brief geography lesson came a day after the U.N. secretary-general, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other major Mideast mediators met in Moscow to try to find a way to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Earlier this month, Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to indirect talks, with U.S. envoy George Mitchell to shuttle between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, the indirect talks were put on hold after Israel announced plans to build 1,600 new houses for Jews in east Jerusalem.

The announcement prompted a major diplomatic row between Israel and the U.S., though Clinton suggested Friday that a way could be found to renew negotiations. Clinton has asked Netanyahu for specific gestures, including canceling the most recent housing plan, and is to hear from the Israeli leader in a meeting in Washington early next week.

Meanwhile, Mitchell is returning to the region over the weekend and is planning to brief Abbas on U.S. efforts. Abbas has said he will not negotiate with Israel directly unless it freezes all settlement construction, including in east Jerusalem.

On Friday, the Mideast mediators, known as the Quartet, reiterated their demand for a complete settlement freeze. They also affirmed that the international community does not recognize Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem, the territory it captured in the 1967 Mideast War, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, said Saturday that it was important to show Ban the situation on the ground because the United Nations is “very important in establishing the independent Palestinian state.”

Nearly half a million Israelis live on war-won land, including some 180,000 in east Jerusalem and nearly 300,000 in the West Bank.

The separation barrier, built over the last eight years, slices off about 8.5 percent of the West Bank. Israel says it’s a temporary security measure to keep out militants, but it juts deep into the West Bank in some areas in what Palestinians say is a land grab. l

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer David B. Caruso, Associated Press Writer

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1 hr 8 mins ago

NEW YORK – A federal judge rejected a multimillion dollar settlement for people sickened by ash and dust from the World Trade Center, saying the deal to compensate 10,000 police officers, firefighters and other laborers didn’t contain enough money.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Friday rejected a legal settlement that would have given at least $575 million to the victims, saying the deal shortchanged ground zero workers whom he called heroes.

“In my judgment, this settlement is not enough,” said U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who delivered his pronouncement to a stunned gallery at a federal courthouse in Manhattan.

Rising from his chair, the 76-year-old jurist said he feared police officers, firefighters and other laborers who cleared rubble after the 9/11 terror attacks were being pushed into signing a deal few of them understood.

Under the terms of the settlement, workers had been given just 90 days to say yes or no to a deal that would have assigned them payments based on a point system that Hellerstein said was complicated enough to make a Talmudic scholar’s head spin.

“I will not preside over a settlement that is based on fear or ignorance,” he said.

Of the proposed settlement of $575 million to $657 million, workers stood to get amounts ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than $1 million.

Hellerstein said the deal should be richer. Too much of it would be eaten up by legal fees, he said.

A third or more of the money set aside for the workers was expected to go to their lawyers. Some plaintiffs had agreed at the start of the case to give as much as 40 percent of any judgment to cover fees and expenses. That might have meant $200 million or more going to attorneys.

Hellerstein, who presides over all federal court litigation related to the terror attacks, ripped into the agreement after hearing several ground zero responders speak tearfully of their illnesses and after receiving letters and phone calls from others expressing confusion about the deal.

He said he was speaking “from the heart” out of great compassion for the thousands of men and women who spent time at ground zero.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the judge’s actions would kill the settlement entirely.

The deal had taken years to negotiate and was announced March 11, with about two months to go until the first trials.

A spokeswoman for the law partnership that negotiated the settlement on behalf of the workers said she had no comment on the judge’s remarks.

Christine LaSala, president of the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a special insurance entity created by Congress to represent the city in the lawsuit, said the judge “has now made it more difficult, if not impossible, for the people bringing these claims to obtain compensation and a settlement.”

She said the lawyers would confer with city officials and “try to find a way forward.”

New York City’s chief lawyer, Michael Cardozo, said, “We have great respect for Judge Hellerstein and will consider his comments, but his reaction to the settlement will make it extremely difficult to resolve these cases.”

Hellerstein laid out a number of proposed fixes for what he saw as deficiencies in the settlement and told the two sides to resume negotiations.

He rejected the idea that a third or more of the money should go to the plaintiffs’ lawyers and said the legal fees should be paid by the WTC Captive, not the workers.

Hellerstein said workers should have ample opportunities to ask questions and get answers about the settlement, and he offered to go on a mini-speaking tour to get information to the plaintiffs.

“I will make myself available in union halls, fire department houses, police precincts and schools,” Hellerstein said.

He said more money should be set aside for people who later develop cancer that may be linked to ground zero toxins. He said he wanted to retain ultimate control over which workers were entitled to have claims paid.

Hellerstein acknowledged that he felt a personal connection to the case, calling it “the greatest burden in my life,” but insisted that his unusual intervention was legally and morally necessary, given the importance of 9/11 to the country.

“This is no ego trip for me. This is work,” he said.

Hellerstein spoke after several ground zero recovery workers had risen in court to describe a litany of health problems they believe are linked to inhaling the ash and dust left by the collapse of the World Trade Center.

The settlement rejected by the judge would have created a pool of at least $575 million for sick workers. That amount could rise to as much as $657 million if enough people accept the deal. Injured workers would get a payment in exchange for dropping their suits against New York City and the dozens of construction contractors it hired to handle the cleanup.

Money for the settlement would be funded with nearly $1 billion in federal taxpayer money that has already been appropriated.

The deal covers a broad list of ailments suspected of being linked to trade center dust, including asthma, chronic coughing and interstitial lung disease, which involves scarring of lung tissue. Some types of cancer are also covered.

For the plaintiffs with relatively minor ailments, payments would have ranged from $3,250 to $9,760. William Groner, an attorney on the team that negotiated the settlement, estimated that 40 percent to 60 percent of the workers would fall into that category.

The rest were to have divided the remaining millions in the pot, with a handful of the sickest getting $1 million or more. The amount they got would have been based on a complicated scoring system that ranks each illness by severity.

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer

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1 hr 13 mins ago

WASHINGTON – In a fresh appeal directly to the Iranian people, President Barack Obama says in an online video that the United States wants more educational and cultural exchanges for their students and better access to the Internet to give them a more hopeful future.

In the video, the second of his presidency directed at Iran, Obama said that the United States’ offer of diplomatic dialogue still stands but that the Iranian government has chosen isolation. He said the U.S. believes in the dignity of every human being.

The White House released the video late Friday, timing it, as it did last year, to coincide with Nowruz, a 12-day holiday celebrating the arrival of spring and the beginning of the new year on the Persian calendar. The video comes as the United States has hit a rough patch in its relationships in the region, particularly with Israel.

“The United States believes in the dignity of every human being and an international order that bends the arc of history in the direction of justice — a future where Iranians can exercise their rights, to participate fully in the global economy and enrich the world through educational and cultural exchanges beyond Iran’s borders,” Obama said in the video, which had Farsi subtitles.

Even though the United States and Iran continue to have differences, Obama said, “we will sustain our commitment to a more hopeful future for the Iranian people — for instance, by increasing opportunities for educational exchanges so that Iranian students can come to our colleges and universities and through our efforts to ensure that Iranians can have access to the software and Internet technology that will enable them to communicate with each other and with the world without fear of censorship.”

Obama has signaled a willingness to speak directly with Iran about its nuclear program and hostility toward Israel, a key U.S. ally. At his inauguration last year, the president said his administration would reach out to rival states, declaring “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

It’s been a rough road for Obama, and there have been few signs Tehran is loosening its grip after bloody elections marred with allegations of fraud. And efforts to impose new sanctions have been slow to find unified support from U.S. allies.

“Our offer of comprehensive diplomatic contacts and dialogue stands,” Obama said in the video. “Indeed, over the course of the last year, it is the Iranian government that has chosen to isolate itself and to choose a self-defeating focus on the past over a commitment to build a better future.” The United States has not had formal diplomatic relations with Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has criticized Obama as merely a continuation of President George W. Bush’s policies toward Israel. Khamenei has called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that is on the verge of collapse and has called for its destruction.

Last year, Obama’s message to the Iranians warned that better relations “will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said then that Iran would welcome talks with the U.S. — but only if there was mutual respect.

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On the Net:

Obama video: http://tinyurl.com/y983qn5