Today鈥檚 early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about how the health law and Medicare are buzz words in public opinion polls and on the campaign trail.
: Romney Cites His Healthcare Law As Proof Of His Compassion
Mitt Romney, while campaigning in Ohio on Wednesday, highlighted the healthcare law that he passed while governor of Massachusetts as proof of his empathy for people. 鈥� The healthcare law is controversial among conservatives because it included a mandate that nearly every state resident purchase the insurance or be fined; it served as the model of the federal healthcare law that is Obama鈥檚 signature act as president, and that is an anathema to many Republicans (Mehta, 9/26).
: Romney Hits 鈥極bamacare鈥� In Ohio
Facing falling poll numbers in Ohio, Mitt Romney reconfigured his stump speech here, ratcheting up his attack on President Barack Obama鈥檚 health care law and returning to his once-abandoned talking points about the Founding Fathers and the debt clock. 鈥� Instead of simply vowing to repeal the health care overhaul, Romney spoke more about the danger it poses to American freedoms (Gibson, 9/26).
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: Romney Shows Political Flexibility On Health Care
Over the course of a half hour on Wednesday evening, Mitt Romney put on a vivid display of his political flexibility on the lightning-rod issue of health care. As his surrogates were warming up a crowd of 3,600 at the SeaGate Convention Centre in downtown Toledo, Romney sat backstage for an interview with NBC News, during which聽 he fully embraced the health care overhaul he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. 鈥� Then, just minutes later, Romney stepped out to rally his supporters here with a sharp critique of Obama鈥檚 national health-care overhaul, calling the federal law 鈥淓xhibit No. 1鈥� of Obama鈥檚 liberal view of government, even though it is very similar to Romney鈥檚 own Massachusetts law (Rucker, 9/26).
: Romney Ad Reaches Out To Working Class
Mitt Romney stepped up his efforts to repair the damage from his 鈥�47 percent鈥� comments, releasing a new television ad on Wednesday. 鈥� In an NBC News interview on Wednesday, Mr. Romney, explaining why he could relate to middle-class voters, talked about the health care law he championed as governor of Massachusetts but rarely mentions on the campaign trail. 鈥淒on鈥檛 forget 鈥� I got everybody in my state insured,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ne hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record鈥� (Parker, 9/26).
: Swing-States Polls: President Obama Tops Mitt Romney On Medicare
And that鈥檚 despite weeks of Republican attacks that the president is taking $716 billion from Medicare to pay for 鈥淥bamacare.鈥� In Florida, Obama is up by 15 percentage points on the question of who would do a better job on Medicare, 55 percent to 40 percent. The numbers are consistent in all three states. Obama leads 55 percent to 39 percent in Ohio, and 55 percent to 39 percent in Pennsylvania (Norman, 9/27).
: Big Firms Overhaul Health Coverage
Two big employers are planning a radical change in the way they provide health benefits to their workers, giving employees a fixed sum of money and allowing them to choose their medical coverage and insurer from an online marketplace (Mathews, 9/26).
: How To Maximize Your Savings Through Smart Health Care Benefit Decisions
Employers will soon be offering workers their yearly opportunity to make changes to their health care benefits. All too often this open-enrollment period has required combing through pages and pages of confusing insurance terms. But this year workers will receive help translating that jargon thanks to a new requirement that insurers provide a user-friendly coverage summary of all health plans. Combined with innovative wellness plans that reward employees for staying health, experts say millions of workers should be able to make smarter benefit decision and save money in the process (9/26).
: Inspector General: Medicare Wrongly Paid For $25M In Refills On Painkillers, Other Drugs
Medicare routinely refilled pain pills and other restricted medications that are barred by federal law from renewal without a fresh prescription, government inspectors said in a report Thursday (9/27).
: Making The 鈥楶harmacy Crawl鈥�
The clampdown by Florida and at least seven other states has left some pain-sufferers struggling to get their medicine. That has put drug-enforcement and public-health officials at odds with some doctors and patients legitimately prescribed the pills. Several states now make doctors criminally liable and revoke their licenses for writing prescriptions for painkillers that lead to overdoses, prompting many to stop prescribing them at all. Other states have tightened regulation of pain clinics, forcing so-called pill mills to close but leaving people in need of pain medications with fewer doctors (Martin, 9/26).
: Md. Health Reform Panel To Vote On State鈥檚 Benchmark Health Benefit Plan
A Maryland panel working on implementing federal health care reform is planning to take a vote on the state鈥檚 benchmark health benefit plan. The Maryland Health Care Reform Coordinating Council is scheduled to meet Thursday in Annapolis (9/27).