Bush administration officials: Obama 'clearly deserves credit'

WASHINGTON — Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's former political adviser, woke up Monday to news of Osama bin Laden's death and did what thousands of other Americans did: He tweeted about it.

Former Vice President Cheney introduces former Secretery of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the Conservative Political Action conference, on February 10.

By Mark Wilson, Getty Images

Former Vice President Cheney introduces former Secretery of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the Conservative Political Action conference, on February 10.

"Justice has been done to Osama bin Laden: all Americans are proud of our military, intel & Presidents Bush, Obama. USA! USA!" Rove wrote.

Rove was among several former Bush administration members who were magnanimous in giving President Obama credit for the operation.

Former vice president Dick Cheney, critical in the past of Obama's handling of terrorism, told ABC's World News Tonight that the Obama administration "clearly deserves credit for the success of the operation."

But he made clear that Obama's success was the culmination of work that began under Bush.

Cheney and former secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said "enhanced" interrogations at Guantanamo Bay might have helped provide the key intelligence.

Fran Townsend, President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser from 2004 to 2007, told USA TODAY that Obama took a big risk in ordering the raid.

"This was an incredibly difficult, dangerous operation. Even a perfectly planned operation could have gone wrong in a thousand different ways," she said. If it failed, "it wouldn't have been a (CIA Director) Leon Panetta disaster," she said. "It would have been a President Obama disaster."

She took exception to Obama's statement Sunday night that he had instructed Panetta "to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al-Qaeda," shortly after taking office. The implication, she said, is that Bush did not make it a priority. "If that was the suggestion, it was not right," she said.

Bush released a short statement moments after Obama's speech Sunday night, congratulating him and "the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission." He made no mention of work done during his presidency.

"I think the fact he's turning down all media requests speaks volumes ?a great leader, a class act," said his former spokeswoman, Dana Perino.

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Obama Administration Eases Pain of Medicare Cuts

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Millions of seniors in popular private insurance plans offered through Medicare will be getting a reprieve from some of the most controversial cuts in President Obama's health care law.

In a policy shift critics see as political, the Health and Human Services department has decided to award quality bonuses to hundreds of Medicare Advantage plans rated merely average.

The $6.7 billion infusion could head off service cuts that would have been a headache for Obama and Democrats in next year's elections for the White House and Congress. More than half the roughly 11 million Medicare Advantage enrollees are in plans rated average.

In a recent letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, two prominent GOP lawmakers questioned what they termed the administration's "newfound support" for Medicare Advantage.

The shift "may represent a thinly veiled use of taxpayer dollars for political purposes," wrote Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan. Camp chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees Medicare. Hatch is his counterpart as ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

Seniors are among the deepest skeptics of the new health care law. A recent AP-GfK poll found that 62 percent disapprove of Obama's handling of health care, as contrasted with 52 percent approval among Americans overall. The poll also found that seniors are more likely to trust Republicans than Democrats on the issue, by a 51 percent to 36 percent margin.

The insurance industry says the bonuses will turn what would have averaged out as a net cut for Medicare Advantage plans in 2012 into a slight increase.

The administration says the reason for the bonuses is quality improvement, not politics.

"We are looking at whether an alternative payment incentive structure would lead to broader quality improvements across all Medicare Advantage plans, by giving incentives for a broader range of plans to improve," said Medicare spokesman Brian Cook.

Medicare covers seniors and disabled people. About one-fourth of beneficiaries are signed up in Medicare Advantage plans that offer lower out-of-pocket costs and more comprehensive benefits than the traditional program. Some of the heaviest enrollment is in states considered political battlegrounds, including Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, Minnesota and Colorado.

The health care law cut $145 billion over ten years from Medicare Advantage, partly to correct a widely acknowledged problem with overpayments to the plans. Those cuts start off modestly in 2012 and build up. Insurers were expected to shift the burden to beneficiaries in the form of fewer services and higher out-of-pocket costs, triggering an exodus back to traditional Medicare.

"The net result is that the boat didn't get rocked," said independent analyst Dan Mendelson, president of the information firm Avalere Health. "It's fair to say that (Medicare) could not tolerate dislocation, given the political climate."

But Mendelson also said he agrees with the administration that the new money will get more plans thinking about how to improve quality, if they want to remain profitable.

"They are giving the plans training wheels to improve their quality," he said.

The health care law itself tried to soften the impact of Medicare Advantage cuts by providing quality bonuses for highly-rated plans that received four or five stars in a government grading system.

But in a policy shift quietly completed this month, HHS decided that average-quality plans garnering three or three-and-a-half stars would also get bonuses. About half of all the plans fall into the three-star category, according to Avalere's analysis.

The HHS decision means that four of five Medicare Advantage enrollees are in plans now eligible for a bonus. That contrasts with the approach that Congress took in the health care law, where only one in four beneficiaries would have been in plans getting the extra payments.

HHS' nearly $7-billion bonus program is temporary. In 2015, the cuts called for in the health care law will kick in again.

But the episode could be an early sign that Medicare cuts used to finance much of Obama's coverage expansion for the uninsured will turn out to be politically unsustainable, as have other efforts to impose austerity. For example, Congress has routinely waived cuts in Medicare payments to doctors.

A nonpartisan agency that advises lawmakers on Medicare criticized the bonus plan. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission said it amounts to "a mechanism to increase payments" and its design "sends the wrong message about what is important to the program and how improved quality can best be achieved."

At a time when government is urging health care providers to improve quality and cut costs, the bonus plan "lessens the incentive to achieve the highest level of performance," commission chairman Glenn Hackbarth wrote to HHS officials. Medicare spokesman Cook disagreed, saying even plans that get two stars will now have an incentive to improve.

Medicare has classified the bonuses as a demonstration program, relying on broad legal authority Congress gave the agency to experiment with quality improvements. It's the costliest demonstration program in Medicare history. The money will come from the Medicare trust fund.

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Obama Administration, Environmentalists Face Off in Court Over Climate Change

Associated Press

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WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration and environmental interests generally agree that global warming is a threat that must be dealt with. 

But they're on opposite sides of a Supreme Court case over the ability of states and groups such as the Audubon Society that want to sue large electric utilities and force power plants in 20 states to cut their emissions. 

The administration is siding with American Electric Power Co. and three other companies in urging the high court to throw out the lawsuit on grounds the Environmental Protection Agency, not a federal court, is the proper authority to make rules about climate change. The justices will hear arguments in the case Tuesday. 

The court is taking up a climate change case for the second time in four years. In 2007, the court declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. By a 5-4 vote, the justices said the EPA has the authority to regulate those emissions from new cars and trucks under that landmark law. The same reasoning applies to power plants. 

The administration says one reason to end the current suit is that the EPA is considering rules that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But the administration also acknowledges that it is not certain that limits will be imposed. 

At the same time, Republicans in Congress are leading an effort to strip the EPA of its power to regulate greenhouse gases. 

The uncertainty about legislation and regulation is the best reason for allowing the case to proceed, said David Doniger, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which represents Audubon and other private groups dedicated to land conservation. 

"This case was always the ultimate backstop," Doniger said, even as he noted that the council would prefer legislation or EPA regulation to court decisions. The suit would end if the EPA does set emission standards for greenhouse gases, he said. 

The legal claims advanced by six states, New York City and the land trusts would be pressed only "if all else failed," he said. 

When the suit was filed in 2004, it looked like the only way to force action on global warming. 

The Bush administration and the Republicans in charge of Congress doubted the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases. 

Federal courts long have been active in disputes over pollution. But those cases typically have involved a power plant or sewage treatment plant that was causing some identifiable harm to people, and property downwind or downstream of the polluting plant. 

Global warming, by its very name, suggests a more complex problem. The power companies argue that any solution must be comprehensive. No court-ordered change alone would have any effect on climate change, the companies say. 

"This is an issue that is of worldwide nature and causation. It's the result of hundreds of years of emissions all over the world," said Ed Comer, vice president and general counsel of the Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group. 

The other defendants in the suit are Cinergy Co., now part of Duke Energy Corp. of North Carolina; Southern Co. Inc. of Georgia; Xcel Energy Inc. of Minnesota; and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA is represented by the government and its views do not precisely align with those of other companies. 

Eight states initially banded together to sue. They were California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. But in a sign of the enduring role of partisan politics in this issue, New Jersey and Wisconsin withdrew this year after Republican replaced Democrats in their governor's offices. 

Another complication is that the administration and the companies may be on the same side at the Supreme Court, but the power industry is strongly opposing climate change regulation. The Southern Co. is a vocal supporter of GOP legislation to block the EPA from acting. 

"It's two-faced for them (the companies) to come into court and say everything is well in hand because EPA is going to act," said Doniger, the NRDC lawyer. 

Comer said the key point is that judges should not make environmental policy. "This has important implications for jobs. If you raise energy costs in the U.S., does that lead industry jobs to go elsewhere and if it does, do you get the same emissions, just from another country?" Comer said. "These judgments are properly made by elected officials." 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was on the federal appeals court panel that heard the case, is not taking part in the Supreme Court's consideration of the issue. 

The case is American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, 10-174.

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