President Wants Bipartisan Health Care Summit
At a joint session of Congress in September 2009, President Obama outlined his plans for health care reform. He said, “Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do.”
Pres. Obama made the announcement on Sunday in an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric that a bipartisan health care reform summit would be held in the upcoming weeks. He said: “What I’ve been doing is consulting closely with the leaders in the House, the leaders in the Senate on the Democratic side. And I want to consult closely with our Republican colleagues. So, they’re going to be coming in to the White House next week. And what I want to do is to ask them to put their ideas on the table.
“Then after the recess, which will be a few weeks away, I want to … have large meetings with Republicans and Democrats to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward.”
The bipartisan summit is planned to be televised live from inside the White House.
Winter Storm Watch Issued for Tuesday, Extended into Wednesday in Washington D.C.
A winter storm watch, from midmorning Tuesday until Wednesday afternoon, was issued on Monday morning for Washington D.C., Central Maryland, and Northern and Eastern West Virginia. The alert issued by NWS Baltimore/Washington on weather.gov states that there is potential for five or more inches of snow accumulation in this interval with temperatures approaching freezing on Tuesday and dropping into the low 20s by Tuesday night and high 20s by Wednesday.
The alert states, “There is a potential for significant snow accumulations that may impact travel. Continue to monitor the latest forecasts.” These snowstorms are a continuation of the severe weather in these regions during the past weekend.
CDC Says H1N1 Continues to Kill
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in the week ending on Jan. 30, doctor visits for flu-like diseases “declined or remained about the same” in all regions of the nation except a western area which includes Alaska, Oregon, Idaho and Washington. In this region, “Influenza-like illness activity increased, but still remain low overall.”
As far as the rate of deaths caused by influenza and pneumonia in the nation, they still remain higher than expected for this time of year but decreased over the past week. Children, who are identified by the CDC as the priority group for vaccination, are still affected, with nine pediatric flu-related deaths in the past week. H1N1 was responsible for eight deaths and an undetermined subtype of the flu caused the other.
A Harvard report released on Friday noted that more than half of parents got the vaccine for their children. Professor Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program stated, “Many parents heeded the public health message to vaccinate their children against this virus, which hit young people unexpectedly hard.”
Despite these numbers and the unusually high rates of death due to flu-like disease, the Harvard poll found that “nearly half of Americans believe that H1N1 outbreak is over.” The CDC advises protecting oneself against the H1N1 flu virus by vaccination and good hygiene practices such as frequently washing one’s hands.
