By JOHN MILBURN The Associated Press

TOPEKA | U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Tuesday that $220 million in federal stimulus funds will be disbursed to programs across the country to train workers in health care and other high-growth industries.

Tuesday was the first day that training programs could begin applying for the money through the Labor Department. Solis unveiled the plan during a tour of the Shawnee County Community Health Care Clinic in Topeka and the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., saying health care services would be one of the fastest-growing career fields over the next decade as the population ages.

“We know there’s a shortage,” Solis said after touring the clinic.

She devoted much of her remarks to health care and President Barack Obama’s desire to push a health care reform bill through Congress this summer. She said such training grants were part of the equation, helping to provide an adequate work force to meet demands in rural states and areas seeing high unemployment.

Solis said $25 million of the funds would be reserved for training in communities hurt by the recent restructuring of the auto industry.

The stimulus money will go to public entities and private nonprofit groups that train workers in health information technology, nursing, long-term care and allied health careers.

Solis said she didn’t know how many potential jobs could be created from the grants. But she said she hoped they would encourage private donors and foundations to match the dollars.

“This is a first down payment,” she said.

The Shawnee County health center in Topeka, which would be eligible for the aid, is home to the public clinic and county health department. It has a staff of 179 and treated nearly 7,000 clients in 2008, including many without health insurance.

The Labor Department will begin taking applications for the stimulus funds Tuesday.

Solis said reviews of applications would begin within two months and grants would be awarded by year’s end. She said applications that build on existing collaborations, such as programs through community colleges or technical schools, would be looked upon favorably.

The program targets people like Clayton Bledsoe, 40, a former quarry worker who began nursing training in 2006 when the economy began to sour. Solis pointed to Bledsoe, who took courses through Neosho County Community College in eastern Kansas and eventually earned his registered nursing degree, as an example of the type of retrained workers the program hopes to create.

Bledsoe works with geriatric patients at Anderson County Hospital in Garnett, about 50 miles south of Topeka.

He wanted to enter a field where “I wouldn’t have to worry about looking to find a job again,” Bledsoe said.

During her visit to the Kansas City medical center, Solis met with medical students who said they intended to return to their rural hometowns to practice after graduation. She also viewed a telemedicine demonstration, in which doctors in Kansas City used Web cameras to interact with and diagnose patients in remote areas of the state.

Solis said she hopes the grants boost such programs, as rural areas are especially hard-hit by a shortage of health care workers.

Above article published on

http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/1338645.html

The AP reports President Obama “returned to campaign-style rhetoric on Thursday,” saying at two New Jersey events that “inaction is not an option” as he urged supporters “to push for his overhaul of the nation’s health care system.” ABC World News, which opened with the story, called the President “a man on a mission. Everywhere he goes these days, he’s pushing healthcare reform.” The AP reports Vice President Biden was also touting reform, joining Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a forum in Virginia.

The Politico reports, “On the defensive over the economy and health care, the White House is shooting back with a double-barreled message for its critics and skeptics. To Republicans who say the stimulus isn’t working: Back off. To moderate Democrats wary of health care reform: We’re watching you.” Bloomberg News, however, reports Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus “complained…Obama is ‘making it difficult’” to create a bipartisan compromise in the Senate. Baucus said Obama’s “opposition to the idea of taxing health-care benefits is ‘not helping us.’” The Hill reports Baucus and other senators emerged from “another intense day of closed-door negotiations” to “admit they had not reached the finish line.” Baucus said, “We’re very close to reaching agreement. By close, I mean it’s a matter of couple, three or four days, maybe.”

Sen. John McCain said on Fox News’ Your World, “The President has reiterated time and again his commitment to getting through before the recess. This thing is like a fish in the sun. If you leave it out there very long, it’s going to begin to smell very, very badly to the American people. That is why they are in such a rush to fundamentally affect one-sixth of our gross national product.”

USA Today reports that three tax increases “proposed by President Obama and House Democrats on the richest Americans could produce the highest tax rates in a quarter-century.” About 500,000 taxpayers earning $1 million or more would pay a full 5.4 surtax under one plan; surtaxes at lower rates would impact anyone earning more than $350,000 per year. Obama’s February budget “calls for letting tax cuts for top earners enacted at the beginning of the decade expire in 2011,” and during the presidential campaign, Obama “favored bolstering Social Security by subjecting family income above $250,000 to the 12.4% payroll tax.”

The New York Times reports Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf told the Senate that healthcare legislation proposed so far “would not curb the federal government’s runaway spending on medical care, and that lawmakers would need to take more forceful action to meet President Obama’s goal of controlling costs.” His testimony “drew criticism from Democratic leaders” and “provided ammunition to Republican critics.” The Wall Street Journal reports Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “quipped that Mr. Elmendorf should consider running for Congress,” while Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin “admitted that Senate Democrats were frustrated with the CBO’s various pronouncements over their efforts to push through health-care overhaul.”

Above article published on

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_090717.htm

As President Refocuses on Domestic Agenda, Criticism of His Plans Grows Louder

By JAKE TAPPER and HUMA KHAN

Back from his overseas trip, President Barack Obama returns his focus to health care and the stimulus package, as the two issues face mounting criticism.

The president faces a number of hurdles in his push for health care changes, as the effort has gone from platitudes and rhetoric to cold, hard legislation, with tough choices on how the program will be paid for, or whether it will include a public, government-run health insurance plan. Obama wants to see health care legislation pass through both the House and Senate before the August recess, but Republicans, and even some Democrats, say that is unlikely.

The president today had stern words for those critics.

“It’s the same Washington thinking that has ignored big challenges and put off tough decisions for decades. And it is precisely that kind of small thinking that has led us into the current predicament,” Obama said while announcing Dr. Regina Benjamin as his pick for U.S. Surgeon General. “So make no mistake. The status quo on health care is no longer an option for the United States of America.”

“We are going to get this done. Inaction is not an option. And for those naysayers and cynics who think that this is not going to happen, don’t bet against us,” he said. “I understand people are a little nervous and a little scared about making change. … The muscles in this town to bring about big changes are a little atrophied, but we’re whipping folks back into shape.”

Critics of the president’s plan take issue with costs and the idea of a government-run health insurance plan.

“Republicans very much want reform but not on the backs of the American people with the kind of taxes and potential rationing of care that would result,” said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz, on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “There is no chance that it’s going to be done by August. President Obama was right about one thing. He said if it’s not done quickly, it won’t be done at all. Why did he say that? Because the longer it hangs out there, the more the American people are skeptical, anxious, and even in opposition to it.”

But administration officials say the president is hopeful and sees the finish line in a chance to revamp health care for the first time in modern history. At a news conference marking the end of the G-8 Summit in Italy, the president resonated that optimism.

“We’re closer to that significant reform than at any time in recent history,” he said when asked to refocus on his domestic agenda at the speech in L’Aquila, Italy. “That doesn’t make it easy. It’s hard. But I’m confident that we’re going to get it done.”

When questioned whether it is a do-or-die before Congress breaks in August, Obama said, “I never believe anything is do-or-die. But I really want to get it done by the August recess.”

The bill faces resistance even from some conservative Democrats in Congress on who would pay for it.

Today, the president argued that his plan would not add to the deficit over the next decade, though Congressional Budget Office estimates of different congressional proposals have put the various price tags at close to a trillion dollars or more. Obama also repeated the promise that those making $250,000 a year or less would not pay more in taxes.

There is also heated debate about whether there should be a public-option plan, which would entail a government-run insurance program to compete with the private industry. Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have said that any plan going through Congress will have some form of public option, but Republicans argue that it will stifle the private market and dent competition.

As he takes his stimulus and health care push to Warren, Mich., Tuesday, the president is likely to push lawmakers to come together around a set of common principles and press them to find ways to compromise on key issues and put a system in place that would strip inefficiencies and help small businesses and families.

Heated Battle on the Stimulus

The president’s stimulus plan is also drawing the ire of some Republicans.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post Sunday, the president defended his $787 billion stimulus plan from concerns and criticism that it has been ineffective, asking Americans to be patient.

“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was not expected to restore the economy to full health on its own but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall,” Obama wrote. “So far, it has done that. It was, from the start, a two-year program, and it will steadily save and create jobs as it ramps up over this summer and fall.”

Administration officials point to the roughly $100 billion that has been invested in infrastructure projects and tax cuts, and say that the bulk of the stimulus spending will occur in the next 12 months.

But some Republicans say the stimulus plan has failed to work the way it was intended.

There is also the issue of expectations. Asked by ABC News how Americans should measure whether his economic plans are correct, the president said, “My initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs.”

But unemployment is a lagging economic indicator, meaning job growth will likely be one of the last parts of the recovery to start working. With unemployment rising to nearly 10 percent, critics say the stimulus hasn’t begun to save or create 4 million jobs.

“I think it’s now acknowledged, it hasn’t done what it set out to do,” Kyl said.

“All governors like ‘free money’ coming to the state. My governor is no different. But the reality is that it has added to our deficit. … It promised to … save 4 million jobs. We’ve now lost another 2 million jobs. The reality is it hasn’t helped yet.”

Critics are not buying the president’s argument that the economic situation could be worse without the recovery package.

“We’re finding out only 10 percent of the money has been spent, a lot of it has been on ridiculous projects,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday. “It included tax cuts, but a lot of them were in the wrong direction. … So what they promised us would be the result of this stimulus in a short-term has turned out not to be true.”

Talk of a second stimulus — which some Democratic lawmakers support — has elicited an even harsher response from the GOP.

“I think it’s a dumb idea, I think it will not work,” the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala, told Fox News. “I know a second stimulus would be a mistake because we’re going to borrow that money. And it won’t turn the economy around. A lot of things will turn the economy around, but I don’t believe the stimulus will.”

But, despite the criticism, the president and his team argue that jobs are the last thing that will improve in this economy and cite improvements in the housing and credit markets as signs of progress.

“We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that, in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity,” Obama wrote in the Washington Post op-ed.

His supporters echo that optimism, saying that job creation is likely to accelerate as more stimulus money is spent.

“This is not a four-month plan, this is a two-year plan,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y, said on “Meet The Press” Sunday. When you have such an awful situation, the worst economy that we’ve had in December, the president hamstrung because the usual tools of getting us out of a recession were lowering interest rates but interest rates were already at 1 percent, you need a strong, long-term plan that has a number of phases.

“Now you’re going to see the second part of the stimulus, which is the job creation part, really kick in.”

The president’s Council of Economic Advisers released a report today detailing how the U.S. labor market is expected to grow and develop in the next few years. Per the report, the expansion in the health care and environment-related sectors will likely create more employment opportunities. It also notes the impact the stimulus has had on construction and manufacturing markets, with a rebound expected as money from the stimulus is distributed.

Above article published on

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=8068326&page=2

Back from his overseas trip, President Obama returns his focus to health care reform and the stimulus package, as the two issues face mounting criticism.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post Sunday, the president defended his $787 billion stimulus plan from concerns and accusations criticism that it has been ineffective, asking Americans to be patient.

“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was not expected to restore the economy to full health on its own but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall,” Obama wrote. “So far, it has done that. It was, from the start, a two-year program, and it will steadily save and create jobs as it ramps up over this summer and fall.”

Administration officials point to the roughly $100 billion that has been invested into infrastructure projects and tax cuts, and say that the bulk of the stimulus spending will occur in the next 12 months.

But some Republicans say the stimulus plan has failed to work the way it was intended.

There is also the issue of expectations. Asked by ABC News how the American people should measure whether his economic plans are correct, the president said “my initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs.”

But unemployment is a lagging economic indicator, meaning job growth will likely be one of the last parts of the recovery to start working. With unemployment rising to nearly 10 percent, the stimulus simply hasn’t begun to save or create four million jobs.

“We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity,” Obama wrote in the Washington Post op-ed.

The president also faces a number of hurdles in his push for health care reform as the effort has gone from platitudes and rhetoric to cold hard legislation, with tough choices on how the program will be paid for, or whether it will include a public, government-run health insurance plan.

The president wants to see health care legislation pass through both the House and Senate before the August recess, but Republicans and even some Democrats say that is unlikely.

“We’re closer to that significant reform than at any time in recent history,” he said when asked to refocus on his domestic agenda at the speech in L’Aquila, Italy. “That doesn’t make it easy. It’s hard. But I’m confident that we’re going to get it done.”

When questioned whether it is a do-or-die before Congress breaks in August, Obama said, “I never believe anything is do-or-die. But I really want to get it done by the August recess.”

Above article published on

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/07/
president-obama-refocuses-on-health-carestimulus.html

Annie Reyes of Merizo said the Southern Regional Community Health Center has been a lifesaver for her family for decades.

“They’re good people; they do a good job here,” she said yesterday in the waiting room of the Department of Public Health and Social Services center in Inarajan after a doctor’s visit.

Not only are the staff friendly and competent, it saves the family from a long — and expensive — drive to see a doctor, added her husband, Joe Reyes.

More families will be able to be seen at the health center daily after an expansion project breaks ground next week.

An infusion of $718,000 through President Obama’s economic stimulus plan, announced, will help fund the expansion, said Dr. Tony Stupski, medical director and acting administrator for Public Health’s community medical centers in Inarajan and Dededo.

The stimulus plan, signed into law in February, set aside $1.5 billion to fund construction, renovation and equipment purchases at community health centers around the nation.

On Guam, it will help along a project to build a larger lab and pharmacy, more exam rooms, isolation rooms and storage at the 40-year-old Inarajan center, Stupski said.

“The whole idea of it is to increase access,” he said. “If you’ve ever been to the regional medical centers, you know sometimes it’s hard to get in. We’re just trying to expand the number of appointments we have and to see more people.”

The Inarajan center also will expand its emergency services offerings, Stupski added.

“It’s going to be set up so it can be used as an emergency center, so during typhoons people can go there,” he said.

The center provides services such as immunizations, women’s care, minor surgeries and wound repair, tuberculosis testing and therapy, STD and cancer screening, communicable and chronic disease care and community outreach.

During the renovation, the center won’t close, but some services, such as assistance programs, have been moved to other Public Health facilities, Stupski said.

The economic downturn and the rising cost of health care mean many more people around the country are depending on community health centers, Obama said earlier this year.

Above article published on

http://www.guampdn.com/article/20090701/NEWS01/907010318/1002/
Accessible-health-care–Stimulus-funds-will-expand-health-center