Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports from the campaign trail as well as the latest news about current meningitis outbreak.
: Check Point: Looking Closely At Statements From Candidates On Foreign Policy
Who knew that fact-checking the sole foreign policy debate of the presidential campaign would include the ranking of Massachusetts schools and how best to administer Medicaid? Repeatedly, the two candidates swerved to the economic issues that have dominated the campaign (Shane, Cooper, Gordon, Oppel and LaFraniere, 10/23).
: Obama, Romney Aim For Swing Vote In Final Debate In Florida
Republicans remain worried that Obama’s extensive get-out-the-vote operation could carry him, and Democrats are concerned that heightened enthusiasm for Romney could give him an edge. As many as 1 in 10 Florida voters may be up for grabs, and Fernando Valladrez is among them. Valladrez voted for Obama in 2008 but says he agrees with Romney on social issues, such as abortion and whether Catholic hospitals should pay for employee insurance coverage for contraceptives, though he doesn’t like Romney’s position on immigration (West and Semuels, 10/22).
For more headlines …
: Obama Says Scheduled Cuts Will Not Happen
President Barack Obama said Monday that scheduled cuts to spending on the military and other government programs “will not happen,” marking perhaps his most definitive comments on the subject. The scheduled spending cuts are the result of a 2011 deal Mr. Obama reached with Congress to raise the government’s borrowing limit. The agreement stipulated that roughly $1.2 trillion in budget cuts would start taking effect in January 2013 unless a congressional “supercommittee” agreed to a deficit-reduction plan of the same size. The cuts were designed to be so objectionable that it would force the committee to reach an agreement. But the committee failed, so the cuts are set to take place next year (Paletta, 10/22).
: After 40 Years, Californias Rep. Pete Stark Faces Tough Battle
Stark first gained national attention as the “hippie banker” who, during the Vietnam War, put a peace symbol on the headquarters of the bank he founded in the East Bay. He was an architect of landmark legislation that allowed workers to extend health coverage for a time after leaving their jobs and required emergency rooms to screen and stabilize anyone who showed up at their doors, regardless of their ability to pay. He also played an important role in developing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s healthcare law (Simon, 10/23).
: In Pennsylvania, Sen. Robert Casey Gets Unexpected Republican Challenge
Casey finally began running an ad that links Smith to the Senate conservatives who would overhaul Medicare and Social Security, a key issue for a state that has one of the nations oldest populations. This isnt just a one-liner. They are deadly serious, Casey warned supporters. The aim is to define Smith as a fringe member of the tea party movement (Kane,10/22).
: Issa Subpoenas Documents On Medicare Demo
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa subpoenaed the Obama administration Monday for documents he believes will expose Medicare malfeasance by Department of Health and Human Services officials. The move, confirmed by an aide to the California Republican, makes good on a threat Issa issued last week, when he demanded reams of data from HHS by 5 p.m. on Thursday. Although the agency dumped 1,300 pages at his doorstep just before the deadline, he contended that the information was garbled and unresponsive to his request (Cheney, 10/22).
: Healthgrades: Which States Have The Safest Hospitals
Arizona, California, Illinois and Ohio scored the best marks for hospital care in a new report that says quality varies “significantly” from state to state in key health areas linked to mortality rates (Lloyd, 10/23).
: Settlement Eases Rules For Some Medicare Patients
Tens of thousands of people with chronic conditions and disabilities may find it easier to qualify for Medicare coverage of potentially costly home health care, skilled nursing home stays and outpatient therapy under policy changes planned by the Obama administration (Pear, 10/22).
: U.S. Concern Over Compounders Predates Outbreak Of Meningitis
A year before people began dying of meningitis caused by a tainted drug from a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts, the Food and Drug Administration worried that compounders across the country might be selling another substandard drug, one possibly made with unapproved Chinese ingredients (Bogdanich and Tavernise, 10/22).
: Documents In Meningitis Case Show Complaints In 1999
The Massachusetts Department of Health released hundreds of pages of documents on Monday detailing a history of violations at the New England Compounding Center, whose tainted medicine has caused a nationwide meningitis outbreak. The documents include dozens of complaints from as early as April 1999, less than a year after the company began as a compounding pharmacy in Framingham, Mass (Tavernise and Pollack, 10/22).
: 2 Women In Queens And Many Others Find A Sick Day Could Mean Theyre Fired
There is now a Dickensian feel to New York City. You walk below the El on Roosevelt Avenue in Corona and find so many hard-fought-for laws against overcrowded tenements, and wage violations and sanitary conditions winked at. In this Upstairs, Downstairs city, those at the bottom of the pile learn the virtues of silence. Of late, however, a coalition of community groups has taken up the cudgel in support of paid sick days. This is a luxury denied to 700,000 to 1.2 million New Yorkers (Powell, 10/22).
: Health Plan Takeover In D.C. Eases Concerns But Doesnt Erase Them
The District governments takeover of its largest health contractor has eased concerns among care providers, but anxieties remain about the effects on the citys half-billion-dollar system of providing health care to the needy (DeBonis, 10/22).
: Wis. Judge Rejects Request To Reinstate Union Bargaining Rights Law While Appeal Is Pending
A Wisconsin judge refused Monday to put on hold his earlier decision repealing major parts of Gov. Scott Walkers law effectively ending collective bargaining for most public workers. The ruling last month overturned the law as it pertained to school and local government workers. The law passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 applied to all public employees except police, firefighters, local transit workers and emergency medical service employees. It limits collective bargaining on wage increases to the rate of inflation. Other issues, such as workplace safety, vacation and health benefits, were excluded from collective bargaining (10/22).
