Obama Passes On Healthcare--States Have to Decide

From Alice: With one half the US population labeled as low-income and 200,000,000 Americans chronically ill, what kind of decision is this? Without Senator Edward Kennedy, we, the middle class, our llost. ANYONE'S GAME 1. Newt Has Peaked Get ready for a train wreck out of Iowa. The Daily Beast's Mark McKinnon and George Caudill say Newt Gingrich is starting to lose steam, Ron Paul is surging, and it's showtime for Jon Huntsman. Iowa won't be the crystal ball that predicts the clear winner of the GOP presidential nominee—rather, the verdict is likely to be muddled coming out of the nation's first caucuses, and could even result in a five-way tie. Read it at The Daily Beast DISASTER 2. Typhoon Strikes Philippines Landslides and flash floods in the Philippines caused by a typhoon have killed more than 250 people and left almost 400 people missing. Typhoon Washi hit the island of Mindanao on Friday night, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Most of the missing are from a coastal village where houses were swept into the sea while people slept. The Philippine social-welfare department estimates that about 100,000 people have been displaced. Read it at Reuters CHANGING COURSE 3. Obama Defers to States on Health Care In an attempt to deflect one of the main Republican lines of attack on the health-care-reform program, President Obama announced that the new law will not set standard health benefits that insurers must provide. Instead, states can specify their own benefits by picking an existing health-care plan as a benchmark, and requiring all other insurers provide benefits of the same or greater value. Under this plan, the program will resemble the regional differences in state Medicaid programs. Read it at The New York Times