US President Barack Obama sought on Wednesday to reframe the healthcare debate as “a core ethical and moral obligation,” imploring a coalition of religious leaders to help promote the plan to lower costs and expand insurance coverage for all Americans.
“I know there’s been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness,” Obama told a multidenominational group of pastors, rabbis and other religious leaders who support his goal to remake the nation’s healthcare system.
As the president re-engaged in the healthcare debate after two days of silence, the administration encouraged Republicans to take part in the negotiations. Still, Democratic leaders moved ahead with plans to advance the measure with or without Republican cooperation next month.
The White House acknowledged that its handling of the debate had been inconsistent, with Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, saying: “I don’t think anybody here believes we’ve pitched a no-hit game or a perfect game.”
Obama did not wade into the uproar among Democrats over whether the bill would have a public insurance component — a key point of contention — but rather tried to correct what he said were untruths about the plan.
“You’ve heard that there’s a government takeover of healthcare. That’s not true,” said Obama, who went on to call other assertions, like a death panel for the elderly, “an extraordinary lie.”
The members of Congress involved in bipartisan healthcare talks said they remained determined to try to reach agreement, with Senator Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee, saying that “bipartisan progress continues” even though lawmakers were scattered for recess.
The six negotiators were scheduled to consult via conference call yesterday although plans for them to meet in person over the break have evidently been put on hold.
Senator Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the panel, said in a statement that no healthcare plan had yet found the kind of broad support he thought was necessary to move ahead.
“That doesn’t mean we should quit,” Grassley said.
Highly critical statements by Grassley of Democratic healthcare proposals — coupled with near blanket rejection by other Republicans — led top Democrats to suspect that no Republicans would be willing to vote for a healthcare plan.
A spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said the leadership had not reached a decision that Democrats should try to force through a health plan on their own.
The spokesman, Jim Manley, said Democrats would prefer to proceed on a bipartisan basis. But the Finance Committee has an informal Sept. 15 deadline for reaching a deal, and Manley indicated that Democrats would not wait indefinitely.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
RSS