Obama: Healthcare 'not a luxury' any more
WASHINGTON, May 11 (UPI) -- Healthcare is "a necessity that cannot wait," U.S. President Obama said, while announcing healthcare providers have pledged to ease cost hikes by $2 trillion.
Spiraling healthcare cost is not only a growing crisis for the American people, but forcing small businesses to drop employee coverage and "putting the federal budget on a disastrous path" because of increased Medicare and Medicaid costs, Obama said during the announcement Monday.
The coalition of healthcare constituencies -- including physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies -- voluntarily agreed to reduce projected cost increases by 1.5 percent annually over the next 10 years, achieving a total savings of $2 trillion from 2010-2019, Obama said. The coalition's pledge helps push healthcare reform ahead in Washington, he said.
He reiterated his pledge to sign a healthcare reform measure by the end of the year, saying changes to the U.S. healthcare system is "imperative to economic future."
Healthcare "is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait," he said.
Obama also repeated his pledge that any healthcare reform would include provisions to bring down the rising costs of healthcare, allow patients the option of keeping their existing plan or physician or choose a new one, and a system of quality affordable healthcare for all Americans.
Watching his mother battle insurers during her losing fight with ovarian cancer galvanized Obama's position on healthcare reform, he said.
"Ultimately, the debate about reducing costs and the larger debate about healthcare reform itself is not just about numbers," Obama said. "It's not just about forms or systems. It's about our own lives and the lives of our loved ones."
One former hospital chief executive officer, however, already is running ads against a government-run program, The Washington Post reported Monday.
Rick Scott, founder of Conservatives for Patients' Rights and a multimillionaire investor, told the Post. "The bottom line is that this is happening fast, and there is not much of a debate going on about what will happen if we go down this path."
Base shooting kills five soldiers in Iraq
BAGHDAD, May 11 (UPI) -- Information was being gathered about what led to the shooting deaths of five U.S. troops Monday at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Pentagon chief Robert Gates said.
"(If) the preliminary reports are confirmed, such a tragic loss of life at the hands of our own forces is a cause for great and urgent concern," Gates said during a news conference in Washington. "And I can assure you that it will get this department's highest priority attention."
The military said it has in custody a U.S. soldier suspected of being involved in the shooting at a clinic for soldiers suffering from war stress.
"Any time we lose one of our own, it affects us all," a military spokesman said.
Initial reports indicated the shooter killed himself.
At least three other people were wounded, CNN said, citing unnamed officials said. CNN reported nationalities of the wounded soldiers were unknown.
Also on Monday, gunmen killed a senior Iraqi police official who was traveling to work in Baghdad, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said. Officials said two vehicles intercepted then fired on the car carrying to work Brig. Gen. Abdul Hussain Kadhim of the traffic police, CNN reported.
Elsewhere, police told the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA they discovered the bodies of three Iraqi citizens in the Tarmiya district of Saladin province. The three people were kidnapped several days ago.
The attack on Kadhim is the second in two days on traffic police, officials said. On Sunday, a roadside bomb struck a convoy with Gen. Jaafar Toma, traffic police director general, who walked away unharmed. Four members of his security detail were wounded.
Netanyahu says Israel wants to renew talks
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt, May 11 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday his country would like to renew negotiations with Palestinian officials in coming weeks.
After meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, Netanyahu said the main source of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the concept of two states, The Jerusalem Post said.
"I hope these talks will indeed start up again in the coming weeks," the prime minister said.
Netanyahu added Israel "yearns to reach peace with its Palestinian neighbors, and with all the Arab nations; we all live in this region, and we are all the sons of Abraham."
The Israeli official also reiterated his stance that such peace negotiations would include diplomatic talks as well as economic cooperation and Palestinian security efforts.
The Post said Netanyahu, who was on his first international visit since becoming prime minister, also thanked Egypt for the country's assistance in regional security, including aid in regards to terrorists and extremists.
Pope: Holocaust victims still heard
JERUSALEM, May 11 (UPI) -- Holocaust victims represent a "perpetual reproach against the spilling of innocent blood," Pope Benedict XVI said in Jerusalem Monday.
The pope said the Catholic Church "is committed to praying and working tirelessly to ensure that hatred will never reign in the hearts of men again," Haaretz reported.
During his first visit to the Middle East and Israel, Pope Benedict made his remarks while visiting Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
"As we stand here in silence, their cry still echoes in our hearts. It is a cry raised against every act of injustice and violence," the pope said. "It is a perpetual reproach against the spilling of innocent blood."
Rabbi Yisreal Mier Lau, chairman of Yad Vashem council, expressed disappointment at the pope's comments, saying "there certainly was no apology expressed here."
The German-born pope didn't mention the Germans or the Nazis as participants in the Holocaust "nor a word of regret," Lau said.
Pope Benedict walked out of an inter-religious dialogue Monday after Chief Islamic Judge of the Palestinian Authority Sheik Tayseer Rajab Tamimi attacked Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Tamimi, uninvited and taking the podium after the pope, accused Israel of killing women and children in Gaza and making Palestinians refugees, then declared Jerusalem the Palestinian capital. The pope left the building after Tamimi's remarks and before the meeting ended, the Post said.
Afterward, papal spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi issued a statement saying, "The intervention of Sheik Tayseer Tamimi was not previewed by the organizers of the inter-religious meeting that took place at Notre Dame Centre in Jerusalem. ... We hope that such an incident will not damage the mission of the Holy Father aiming at promoting peace and inter-religious dialogue."
Atlantis begins its 11-day Hubble mission
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., May 11 (UPI) -- Space shuttle Atlantis lifted off Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, en route to provide the final servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Veteran astronaut Scott Altman commands the STS-125 mission, with retired Navy Capt. Gregory Johnson serving as pilot. The crew also includes veteran spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino, and first-time space fliers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur.
During the 11-day mission the National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronauts will perform five spacewalks, installing two new instruments, repairing two inactive ones and making component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning until at least 2014.
The servicing mission, the fifth, is designed to update Hubble, which has been in operation for 19 years. NASA said Hubble, after it is upgraded, will be 100 times as powerful as it was when it went into orbit in April 1990.
