Obama signs national healthcare overhaul law

The news from Washington that President Barack Obama had signed into law the hard-fought healthcare reform bill set off cheers in the White House and cries of outrage from Republican statehouses across the country. The months of partisan sniping over the bill that seemed to threaten the very foundation of the political system of the United States were on hold Tuesday, at least temporarily, for a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House, according to the Reuters international news agency. "We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their healthcare," Obama said. But as expected in the partisan-divided atmosphere that permeates federal policymaking, 14 states filed suit minutes after the bill-signing to try to block the sweeping $940 billion overhaul of the nation's healthcare system and Republicans in Congress vowed to continue to resist the measure. Democrats said they had the votes to pass a package of changes needed to implement the bill. Among the changes approved by Congress are provisions that extend coverage to $32 million people who do not have health insurance now, bar insurers from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions, expand Medicaid and raise taxes on the wealthy. Obama said he thought most U.S. residents will be happy with the changes, even though everyone will be required to purchase health insurance with the help of government subsidies. "I'm confident you'll like what you see," Obama said. But Republicans do not. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican whose department is one of the states that filed suit, said the bill was unconstitutional because it required all residents to have insurance. "It forces people to do something -- in the sense of buying a health care policy or paying a penalty, a tax or a fine -- that simply the Constitution does not allow Congress to do," he said. Other Republican critics of the legislation vowed to make opposition to the legislation a focal point of midterm congressional elections scheduled for November, Reuters said.

Obama decision on nuclear power is potentially volatile compromise

Certainly being president of all the people means having to do things that may disappoint your supporters but benefit the country as a whole. That, certainly, is behind U.S. President Barack Obama's repeated entreaties to the Republican Party minorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, despite his Democratic Party's majorities in both. And that probably explains his thinking Monday, when an unnamed official told the Reuters international news service that he would announce an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to help the Southern Co. of Atlanta build two nuclear reactors. But there should be, one would hope, a limit to the number of basic principles you're willing to surrender. Healthcare reform appears to have been inadvisedly compromised away, so expansion of the civilian nuclear power industry would have been a very good place to start holding the line. There's a good reason no nuclear power plants have been built in the United States for 30 years -- even besides the nearly incalculable damage that a major accident could cause, nuclear waste disposal technology is not now, even after all these years, and obviously may never be ready for prime time. Yet Obama plans to put the federal taxing power behind a utility company to help it build two more reactors at an existing two-reactor nuclear plant outside Atlanta. Obama is backing nuclear power as an environmentally desirable alternative to fossil fuel plants, even though his decision will likely damage his pro-environment credentials. The loan guarantees will enable the Southern Co. to finance 70 percent of the new construction, which is expected to cost as much as $9 billion when the plants are completed in 2016 or 2017.

Officials race the clock to get deal at Copenhagen climate talks

U.S. officials are working furiously behind the scenes at the Copenhagen climate talks to arrange a multination emissions-reduction deal that includes China, the Reuters international news service reported Thursday. Their urgency comes from the impending arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama, due to arrive tomorrow, and their desire to have an international deal done or close to completion by that time. "We're making progress on all of our outstanding issues with the Chinese," one official told Reuters. "We have a good dialogue going and there are other parties as well. "There's still a way to go on all the issues and there's not much time left, so we certainly can't predict at this point what the outcome of the conference will be." Obama is scheduled to address the conference and could be bringing a new proposal for developed nations to help pay for poorer nations to deal with the effects of rising sea levels due to global climate change. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the conference today that the United States would help raise $100 billion a year by 2020 for such a fund. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the United States thinks an emissions-reduction deal is still possible at Copenhagen, despite differences between developed and developing nations on the size of the restrictions and on verification that have limited progress so far. "We want something that works for both the international community but also that works for the United States," White House press spokesman Robert Gibbs told Reuters. "We think the elements are there to reach that agreement." Obama is expected to be at Copenhagen for less than a full day, Reuters said, because he wants to return to Washington to continue working on healthcare reform legislation pending in Congress.