Obama Care: Mar 5, 2013

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Chris Christie Vetoes Help For Homeowners In State Plagued By Foreclosures

Our guest blogger is David Sanchez, a Special Assistant with the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Economic and Housing Policy Teams.

New Jersey is facing a twin crisis of foreclosures and lack of affordable housing, but Gov. Chris Christie (R) recently vetoed two bills that would have brightened the outlook for New Jersey residents struggling to afford homes.

The first bill would have empowered New Jersey’s Housing Mortgage and Finance Agency to purchase foreclosed homes and transform them into affordable housing. In doing so, New Jersey would combat the crime and blight brought about by vacant homes, while also increasing housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income families.

The bill had support not only from housing advocates, but from a broad swatch of businesses. What’s more, it would have been implemented without requiring state appropriations.

The second bill would have improved New Jersey’s program to help unemployed or underemployed homeowners make their mortgage payments. This program, funded by a $300 million grant from the federal government’s Hardest Hit Fund program, has badly underperformed for years: according to the most recent statistics, the program has denied assistance to more than double the number of applicants it has helped, and it has spent less than one twentieth of the funds available (although changes have recently been announced that may improve the program). The bill would have mandated that the program respond to applicants and issue aid more quickly.

Christie’s decision to veto these bills is puzzling, to say the least, given the challenges facing New Jersey’s housing market and families. While the housing market is improving in most of the country, it’s getting worse in New Jersey. New Jersey’s percentage of homeowners who are not current on their mortgages increased the most of any state in 2012, and delinquencies remain especially elevated in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Likewise, New Jersey has the second highest percentage of homes in the foreclosure process, with as many as 150,000 foreclosed homes soon to be on the market.

At the same time, New Jersey faces a dire shortage of affordable housing units, with half of all homeowners and an even larger number of renters facing cost burdens.

Unfortunately, Christie’s inaction on New Jersey’s housing challenges is nothing new. Instead of helping New Jersey homeowners, Christie used all of the state’s share of the landmark National Mortgage Settlement to fill budget holes in the state’s general fund. Christie is also attempting to weaken the process by which New Jersey guarantees that affordable housing will be built in communities across the state.

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Statement by the Press Secretary on the Visit of Italian President Napolitan

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For Immediate Release January 30, 2013 Statement by the Press Secretary on the Visit of Italian President Napolitan

On Friday, February 15, President Obama will host President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy in the Oval Office. President Napolitano will soon conclude his term in office, following a long and distinguished career of service to Italy, a close ally and friend of the United States. The President looks forward to welcoming President Napolitano to pay a farewell call and further reinforce the strong and enduring bonds between our two countries.

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The Secretary of Agriculture is leading the U.S. Presidential Delegation to the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games.

January 31, 2013 12:13 PM ESTThe Posse Foundation Selects First Cohort of Veterans for College Success Program

The Posse Foundation has teamed up with Vassar College to launch its Veterans Posse Program, helping veterans succeed at home and in school.

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Tick, Tock: Administration Misses Some Health Law Deadlines

Updated at 1:48 p.m. to reflect the administration's announcement that 500 groups will participate in a pilot program to change how doctors and hospitals are paid.

The Obama administration is late in implementing several provisions of the federal health overhaul intended to improve access to care and lower costs.

The programs, slated to take effect Jan. 1, were supposed to increase fees to primary care doctors who treat Medicaid patients, give states more federal funding if they eliminate Medicaid co-pays for preventive services and experiment with changes to how doctors and hospitals are paid by Medicare.

The administration also has delayed giving states guidance on a new coverage option known as the "basic health program," designed to help low and moderate-income people who don't qualify for Medicaid. At least one state --Washington -- has already decided to not implement the program in 2014 because it won't have enough time. Washington, along with Minnesota and New York, are keenly affected by the federal inaction because they already have government subsidized programs to help cover such residents which expire at the end of this year. As a result, tens of thousands of people who now have coverage but who won’t qualify for expanded Medicaid could see their coverage become unaffordable next year.

Some of these deadlines appear to have slipped as the administration focuses on carrying out two of the biggest provisions in the health law designed to expand coverage to as many as 30 million people: On Oct. 1, the federal government must have in place new online marketplaces that will offer government-subsidized individual and small group coverage in every state. Coverage in these marketplaces starts Jan. 1, 2014, when many states are also expected to expand their Medicaid programs for the poor.

Dr. Kavita Patel, a former health policy aide to President Barack Obama, said some delays are inevitable given staff turnover after the November election and the focus on emergencies such as Hurricane Sandy. "I am still impressed with the rate that they are going given all that is going on," said Patel, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

But the delays are already affecting some of the programs that states and their neediest residents had banked on.

Most states, including Texas, Florida and California, have not started offering the higher pay rates to primary care doctors who see Medicaid patients because the administration did not issue the rules until November and state officials said they didn't have time to carry out the change. While Medicaid fees vary by state, they are generally far below those paid by Medicare and private plans. The change means an average 73 percent average pay increase nationally, according to a 2012 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

The two-year pay hike is intended to entice more doctors to treat the millions of residents expected to enroll in Medicaid in 2014. "The delay doesn't help" states' efforts to recruit new doctors, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a California patient advocacy group.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said doctors will be able to get the higher fees retroactively to Jan. 1, when states do implement the provision.

The administration has also lagged on paying states a 1 percentage point higher Medicaid matching rate if they eliminate requirements for co-pays for immunizations and other preventive services. About half the states charge people on Medicaid nominal co-payments for such services, which could be a barrier to care.

The federal government splits the cost of Medicaid with states, with the percent of funding varying by the wealth of each state. Every state receives at least a 50 percent match. The 1 percentage point increase would mean an extra $74 million in federal funding in Washington, said MaryAnne Lindeblad, director of the Washington State Health Care Authority, which runs the Medicaid program.

"In the great scheme of things, every little bit helps," she said.

It is unclear when the payments will begin to states that qualify because the administration has not issued the regulations.

The health law was also supposed to give states the option to set up a basic health program that would offer lower cost-sharing for people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but who would be hard pressed -- even with new federal subsidies -- to afford the premiums and cost-sharing of plans offered in the new markets. The law allows states to use federal dollars that would have gone to subsidies to pay instead for coverage for residents who earn up to twice the federal poverty level, or about $47,000 for a family of four.

Washington, Minnesota and New York are scheduled to end their programs later this year because it was assumed beneficiaries would get coverage through the health law. Massachusetts' program will expire in June.

Another advantage of the basic health program is that people won't have to worry about paying the government back if their incomes increase during the year in which they are enrolled, while people getting subsidies could face that prospect, Lindeblad said.

Washington hopes to offer the program in 2015, she said.

An HHS spokesman said rules for the basic health program should be coming soon and offered no reason for the delay.

Lucinda Jesson, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, said the basic health program is vital for states like Minnesota that were ahead of the federal government in expanding coverage. More than 90,000 people might have to go from MinnesotaCare into the more high cost coverage in exchanges if the state can’t establish a basic health program in time for 2014, Jesson said.

"We don’t want to have people worse off because of the Affordable Care Act -- that is not what Congress intended."

Early Thursday afternoon, meanwhile, administration officials announced the start of the pilot program to change how doctors and hospitals are paid. Under the "bundled payments" initiative, participants in more than 500 provider organizations will be paid for "episodes of care," instead of separately for individual services. Such payments are seen as a way to encourage hospitals and doctors to work together to hold down costs and improve care.

“The objective of this initiative is to improve the quality of health care delivery for Medicare beneficiaries, while reducing program expenditures, by aligning the financial incentives of all providers,” said Acting CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.

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Tackling Azerbaijan's corruption

By Harout Harry Semerdjian, Ph.D. candiate, University of Oxford, UK - 01/31/13 04:00 PM ET

In his op-ed entitled “Armenia and Azerbaijan: Arriving at a fair and honest discourse,” Emil Agazade, while touching on issues only peripheral to my original article and best suited to his interests, passes all limits of journalistic ethics and crosses into the boundary of hate and ignorance.

Instead of attempting to give Congress a counter-lesson on history and geopolitics, I would highly suggest that Emil Agazade first help put his own house in order. Transparency International consistently ranks Azerbaijan among the most corrupt countries of the world, and its president Ilham Aliyev was recently named the “world’s most corrupt leader” by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Journalists in the country continue to suffer from violence and threats, and pro-democracy activists have been beaten and imprisoned in recent years. The European Parliament has explicitly condemned Azerbaijan for “increasing number of incidents of harassment, attacks and violence against civil society and social network activists and journalists in Azerbaijan.”

This is also the very leadership of a country that makes heroes out of axe-murderers such as Ramil Safarov, who was recently pardoned despite having killed his fellow Armenian attendee with an axe in a NATO-sponsored study program in Hungary. This is also the same regime that embarked on a Taliban-style cultural genocide in 2005 against thousands of medieval Armenian religious monuments in Jugha, Nackichevan, which has been well-documented by video footage, photographs and advanced satellite imaging. International diplomats have been repeatedly banned by Azerbaijani authorities from visiting the region, including past and present U.S. Ambassadors to Azerbaijan, Matthew Bryza and Richard Morningstar.

While the petro-dollars of the Aliyev regime fund lobbyists such as Emil Agazade to monitor the global media and attempt to suppress freedom of information, it would be much wiser for Azerbaijan’s leadership to spend the money at home, where over 40 percent of the rural population live below the poverty line.

Semerdjian is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oxford.

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Boehringer Ingelheim Ohio subsidiary enters consent decree

Jan 31 (Reuters) - Ben Venue Laboratories Inc., a unit of German drug company Boehringer Ingelheim, may not freely make or distribute drugs from its facility in Bedford, Ohio, until U.S. regulators have determined it is in compliance with good manufacturing standards.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said a federal judge approved a consent decree on Thursday under which the company must bring its facility into compliance with regulatory requirements or face fines and other penalties.

Ben Venue has repeatedly violated good manufacturing practices, the FDA said in a statement. Recent FDA inspections found that poorly maintained equipment deteriorated to the point that it shed particles into injectable drugs.

"The company's failure to promptly address these problems put patients at risk of receiving poor quality drugs and compromises the availability of medically necessary products," said Melinda Plaisier, acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs.

Ben Venue's chief executive officer, its vice president of operations and its vice president of quality operations were named defendants in the consent decree which was signed by Judge Lesley Wells of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

A spokesperson for Boehringer Ingelheim was not immediately available for comment. The company this month said in a statement it had voluntarily entered a consent decree and would be permitted to continue manufacturing more than 100 drugs. The agreement was subject to approval by the judge.

Ben Venue manufactures products including sterile injectable drugs. It also makes drugs for other companies. FDA said it is working with Ben Venue to prioritize and ensure the availability of the company's medically necessary drugs to respond to and prevent potential drug shortages.

(Reporting by Toni Clarke; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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Stop Complaining About “The Masses,” and “Middle American” Tastes In Pop Culture

Over at NPR, Linda Holmes has a lovely post about the fallacies of pretending that “the masses” or “Middle America” are some sort of homogenous block of cultural consumers, or that “the lowest common denominator” is something we should have contempt for, rather than embrace:

I’ve always found the lowest common denominator kind of a cozy concept, particularly because you kind of do it by feel — it’s a translator that lets you take two things that seem to be vibrating on different frequencies and unlock them so they can fit together instead of bumping into each other.
But somehow in culture, “lowest common denominator” has become a way to describe not what’s unifying but what’s worst, as if we all come together where we are awful and stupid. In fact, when we do all come together in large numbers, it’s usually not where we are awful and stupid, particularly not because we are awful and stupid. We come together where there’s enough commonality to let people talk to each other about the same thing. How did that become a slam, unless we assume that the purpose of culture, and of our own tastes, is to efficiently separate those who favor wheat from those who are more into chaff?
The lowest common denominator on a huge scale, in fact, is probably something like The Avengers or the Oscars or the Super Bowl, none of which is embraced for its scandalous or scatological qualities, but all of which are popular simply because lots of people think it’s fun to watch them. And as silly as those things are, their commonality is actually their most redeeming quality — that it’s the lowest common denominator across surprisingly diverse populations is the best thing about the Super Bowl, not the worst. It’s certainly the best thing about the Oscars.

To paraphrase some of the rest of the piece, we watch Community in red states and worship at the altar of Mark Harmon in NCIS in blue states.

I have to say, I wonder if some of this divide comes from shifts in business models that have divided both television and movies into things with massive audiences and tiny audiences, without much space in between. In movies, we’ve increasingly got tentpoles, many of which are genre movies—which face an inherent critical bias and are siloed into “low” culture no matter how self-serious they get—and smaller independent or foreign films, with smart, adult, not very expensive movies vanishing from the scene. 2012 felt like a rare movie-going year in part because there were a number of mass hits, like Lincoln, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, and Django Unchained that have both done good or pretty good box office and have received good reviews and been the subject of spirited intellectual debates. The things among our common denominators weren’t inherently the lowest. But I do understand how, if you’re a devotee of those $30 million movies that are vanishing, or if it’s becoming harder for you to find independent and foreign films in theaters and they’re slow to make it to video on demand or to streaming, you might feel a certain amount of resentment. It’s not just that other people want and support other things—it’s that it feels harder to get what you want.

The same is true in television, where there remain some massive hits like Dancing With The Stars, NCIS or The Big Bang Theory, but where the ratings for new comedies in particular have quickly shrunk to the point of invisibility. Watching the struggle of something like Community to stay alive, I don’t blame people for being frustrated that more people aren’t tuning in. But the truth is that something like Community, or Happy Endings, or even 30 Rock, all the self-aware, self-referential, pop-culture examining comedies out there—they have an inherent audience ceiling. And that’s totally okay! One of the blessings of a diversified media environment is that networks will create and keep running weird shows with wacky premises and strange-but-endearing characters long after they would have been nuked in a previous era of television. What fans of those shows want is less for everyone to suddenly ditch Leroy Jethro Gibbs and discover the joys of Dean Pelton, and more for NBC to find a way to make money on its wonderful little curiosities, whether it’s an adjustment to the Nielsen ratings that gets advertisers excited about more delayed watching, or richer syndication deals with Hulu and Netflix.

In other words, if folks are still turning up their noses at what “Middle America” watches when Dan Harmon gets his eleventy-billion new shows on the air in coming seasons, the heck with ‘em. But if folks are upset about what’s getting mass audiences because they’re afraid it threatens what they like, I have more sympathy for people’s desire to get their hands on and provide support to content than they love.

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The rise of the second generation U.S. Latinos

By Joseph M. Humire and Fernando D. Menéndez, Cordob Group International LLC - 01/31/13 04:30 PM ET

In a warning to fellow Republicans, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) urged the GOP to not overlook immigration reform, or else run the risk of having U.S. Latinos defect from their ranks as red states could become blue. Sen. McCain is right - immigration reform is a necessary and important first step - but in and of itself, is not enough if conservatives truly want to gain the trust and confidence of the fast growing U.S. Latino electorate.

If they wish to turn the tide on U.S. Latinos, the GOP must show a deeper understanding of how this key demographic has evolved over time.

To begin, U.S. Latinos are not a homogenous group and the term “Latino” itself is a construction of U.S. origin to describe an otherwise extremely diverse population. The majority of U.S. Latinos are Mexican-American, Puerto Rican and Cuban-American with a growing group of Central and South Americans. Cuban-Americans, given their history, tend to vote Republican, although they elected the first Cuban Democrat from South Florida, Joe Garcia, in the last election. Puerto Ricans have tended to vote Democrat, although pro-statehood Puerto Ricans lean Republican. Mexican-Americans have voted overwhelmingly Democratic for decades. This recent Congress has the largest number of Latino congressmen ever, with three Senators (all Cuban-American).

The use of Spanish or English at home varies from family to family, and from generation to generation. Growing numbers of U.S. Latinos practice evangelical Christianity, and not Roman Catholicism. Many of the indicators that once identified U.S. Latinos are changing rapidly, and most notable is the rise of the second generation of Latinos in the United States.

It was once believed that the U.S. political establishment should focus on first generation Latinos because as a single demographic they comprised the majority of the total U.S. Latino population, but these numbers have reversed over the turn of the century. According to the Pew Research Hispanic Center, as of 2010, second and third-plus generation Latinos comprise over 60 percent of the total U.S. Latino population, meaning that the majority of U.S. Latinos are now American-born, English-speaking and U.S.-educated.

The second-generation, many either born in the U.S. or well integrated, tends to be bilingual and multicultural. They bridge their parent’s past-focused, Spanish speaking (first) generation to their, eventually monolingual, future-oriented children’s (third) generation. Like other Americans, they are concerned with burdensome taxes, homeownership, jobs and business opportunities, and the education of themselves and their children, among other issues. But they maintain ties to documented, un-documented and non-naturalized relatives, so a lawful solution of immigration is important if at the minimum to stop the rhetoric against “illegal immigrants” which is perceived by the community writ large as thinly veiled racial intolerance and prejudice.

As Latino generations entrench themselves in the “American” way of life a significant cultural shift takes place, which must be understood in order to engage in effective political outreach. For instance, while second-generation U.S. Latinos sympathize with the struggles of their immigrant parents, their attitudes, identity and experiences are their own. Like many other ethnic groups, assimilation has not been easy for second generation U.S. Latinos; many have struggled to find a niche in the mainstream of U.S. society. On the aggregate, second generation U.S. Latinos have the second highest high school drop rate, highest teen pregnancy rate, and largest proportion of gang involvement of any U.S. born racial or ethnic group.

Yet the “American dream” is still very much alive within this young generation, and the majority continue to pursue upward social mobility through access to education, serving our armed forces, entering the professional job market, and engaging the political process. If for nothing else, than to make their parents proud and position their children to inherit fewer struggles than generations before them.

In politics, as in life, authenticity matters and the business community, as usual, has been ahead of politicians in tailoring their message towards U.S. Latinos, because they understand the generational differences between them. According to a recent Yahoo marketing study, most second-generation Latinos feel that public spokespeople (including politicians) do not accurately portray their ethnicity and if messaging is to be authentic it must reflect the bilingual and multicultural identity of this key demographic, whose buying power is projected to reach $1.5 trillion within a few years.

U.S. Latinos are the nation’s fastest rising electoral group, and as birth rates continue to outpace immigration rates the U.S. Latino population will shift more towards the second and third-plus generations. Understanding this is key to any political outreach effort.

Therefore while immigration reform serves a practical purpose for a shrinking share of Latinos in the U.S., and a symbolic purpose for a growing share, this important debate needs to be complemented with a nuanced understanding of how acculturation and assimilation has been affecting the U.S. Latino experience.

Humire, a Bolivian-American, and Menéndez, a Cuban-American are principals with the Cordoba Group International LLC, a strategic consulting firm in Northern Virginia that provides research, analysis and project management for a variety of U.S. and international clients.

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Obamacare Buyer's Remorse?

Highlight transcript below to create clipTranscript: Print | Email Go Click text to jump within videoThu 31 Jan 13 | 07:48 PM ET Some unions are growing weary of the health law they supported, with Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute president and Philip Dine, author of "State of the Unions."

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Conference Call on the Vice President's Trip to Germany, France and the United Kingdom

Conference Call on the Vice President's Trip to Germany, France and the United Kingdom | The White House Skip to main content | Skip to footer site map The White House. President Barack Obama Get Email Updates Contact Us Go to homepage. The White House Blog Photos & Videos Photo Galleries Video Performances Live Streams Podcasts 2012: A Year in Photos

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For Immediate Release January 31, 2013 Conference Call on the Vice President's Trip to Germany, France and the United Kingdom

CONFERENCE CALL ON VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN’STRIP TO GERMANY, FRANCE AND THE UNITED KINGDOMBY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE VICE PRESIDENT TONY BLINKEN,DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR FORSTRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS BEN RHODESAND DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISORFOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS MICHAEL FROMAN Via Teleconference 11:16 A.M. EST MR. RHODES: Hey, everybody, thanks for doing the call to preview the Vice President’s trip to Europe. This is Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, here at the White House. We’re joined by Tony Blinken, who is the National Security Advisor to the Vice President for a few more days at least before he moves into his new role as the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor here at the NSC; and Mike Froman, who is the Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs. I’ll just say a few words and hand it off to Tony to go through the trip. But four years ago, the Vice President made a similar trip to Munich at the beginning of our first term that really signaled the foundational importance that we apply to the transatlantic relationship as the cornerstone of our engagement in the world. On that trip, the President -- the Vice President set, I think, a new tone for American foreign policy going forward, and one that really, again, put alliances at the center of everything that we do. Similarly, this time, at the beginning of the second term, we believe it’s very important for the Vice President to carry a similar message about the progress that we’ve made in working with our European allies on a range of issues, but also the agenda we have going forward on a range of economic and security issues that will require very close transatlantic cooperation. So with that, let me just hand it over to Tony, who can walk through the trip, and Mike, who can speak to some of the economic issues, and then we’ll take your questions. MR. BLINKEN: Great, Ben. Thanks very much. Thanks for joining the call. And just to pick up where Ben left off, as Ben noted, the Vice President was in Munich almost exactly four years ago at the start of the first term. Now he’s going back at the start of the second to do exactly what Ben said, which is to take stock of what we’ve accomplished over the past four years and to look at the agenda going forward. And again, as Ben said, it’s no coincidence that the Vice President went to Europe then and returns to Europe now to help set out our foreign policy agenda. As President Obama has said, Europe is the cornerstone of our engagement with the world and a catalyst for global cooperation. Let me just give you the wave tops to the Vice President’s schedule, and I should mention that Dr. Biden will be with him, so I’ll give you some highlights of her schedule, then talk in a little bit more detail about the various events and meetings, and then turn it over to Mike to talk a little bit about the economic piece. So in terms of the Vice President’s schedule, we depart this evening from Washington and arrive in Berlin tomorrow morning, where he will have a meeting with Chancellor Merkel. Then, in the evening tomorrow, off to Munich. On Saturday, the Vice President attends the 49th Munich Security Conference and delivers remarks and will hold a series of meetings with leaders there. On Sunday, the Vice President and Dr. Biden will visit the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. And then it’s off to Paris Sunday, late afternoon, early evening. On Monday, the Vice President will see President Hollande in Paris. Then it’s off to London, where he will see, on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Clegg and Prime Minister Cameron. Dr. Biden, during this time, will have her own schedule. On Friday, in Germany, she will meet with current American participants and German alumni of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program. On Saturday, she’ll visit with soldiers and their families at the Joint Multinational Training Command in Grafenwoehr, Germany. She’ll be with the Vice President at Landstuhl on Sunday. And throughout the trip, she and the Vice President will be meeting with our embassy staffs and their families. So that’s a very broad look at the schedule. Let me talk briefly in a little bit more depth about each stop. In Berlin, where we start, the key event, of course, is the meeting with Chancellor Merkel. They’ll cover the broad agenda of our partnership and cooperation between the United States and Germany. I suspect there will be a focus on the global economy as well as many issues of common interest and cooperation, whether it’s Iran’s nuclear program, Syria, Afghanistan, energy and climate change. In Munich, the Vice President will deliver his address at the Security Conference on Saturday morning. There are about 350 world leaders, government ministers, opinion leaders. On the margins of the conference he’ll have a number of bilateral meetings, including with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, with Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria, and with Moaz al-Khatib, the president of the Syrian Opposition Council. So I suspect there will be some focus on Syria in those discussions. Later that afternoon, the Vice President and Dr. Biden will head out to our consulate in Munich to meet with staff and families. And in the evening -- we’re still Saturday -- the Vice President and other leaders will attend the Bavarian Minister President Seehofer’s dinner, which honors Brent Scowcroft. On Sunday, the Vice President and Dr. Biden travel to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. I think as all of you know, this is where many of our wounded warriors receive care, and there will be an opportunity there to visit with many of the caregivers. Afterwards, we’ll depart for Paris. Monday morning, in Paris, the Vice President and Dr. Biden will meet with our Ambassador, Charlie Rivkin, and the embassy staff and their families. And then he’ll have a working lunch with President Hollande and both the -- both Vice President Biden and President Hollande will deliver short statements to the press. There, I think the agenda will focus on our strong support for the French and African mission in Mali. We’ll no doubt have a broader discussion on counterterrorism cooperation in the region. And there will be a discussion of Syria, Iran’s nuclear program, the eurozone, and the U.S.-EU economic partnership. Finally, we get to Monday evening. The meetings are Tuesday. Tuesday morning, the Vice President and Dr. Biden will visit with our embassy staff. And then the Vice President will go to 10 Downing Street. He’ll have a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Clegg followed by a working lunch with Prime Minister Cameron. And then the Vice President will join a meeting of the United Kingdom’s National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Cameron. There again, I would expect the issues to be many of the ones he will have covered in meetings with Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande, including Syria, Afghanistan, North Africa, Iran, and the economic relationship between the United States and Europe, which is a very good segue to my friend and colleague Mike Froman. MR. FROMAN: Thanks, Tony. Let me just touch on two issues. One, the overall situation of economic growth and jobs in Europe, and the second in particular, the trade and investment initiative that both sides (inaudible) on the situation with regard to European (inaudible) growth, our expectation is the Vice President will have a good dialogue with Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Cameron, President Hollande and others while he’s there about the steps that the European (inaudible) taken, the decisions they’ve taken to support financial stability and reassure markets. The importance of implementing (inaudible) also very much support the critical importance of looking ahead to determine how best to re-create growth and the (inaudible) in Europe as well. It’s a challenge that we face here in the United States. Also, we have a strong interest in Europe getting (inaudible) one reason we have that interest is that Europe is a very important market to us (inaudible) broad trade and investment relationship that supports (inaudible) million U.S. jobs, in the United States. They’re our closest trading partners. In the past year, following a meeting between President Obama and (inaudible) Barroso of the European Union (inaudible) a high-level working group, exploring what more could be done to (inaudible) the trade and investment relationship. And that group is continuing its work to determine whether there is a path forward toward a comprehensive trade and investment agreement. Because we have already such a deep relationship, the key issues ahead are some of the most difficult issues, like regulatory convergence and standards setting. And while the Vice President is there, he is likely to have conversations with European leaders about the importance of there being political will to address these issues if we’re going to be able to pursue a deeper and broader trade and investment relationship. So that is likely to be a key part of the discussions there, and we look forward to the high-level working group completing its work and being able to make a recommendation to leaders of both sides as to whether such negotiations make sense. MR. RHODES: Great, thanks. With that, we can take your questions. Q Hi, thanks. You mentioned that the Vice President will be talking about Syria on Saturday with Lavrov and Brahimi and al-Khatib. Even before he gets there, the situation seems to be deteriorating, with Syria and Iran saying they reserve the right to retaliate against Israel for the raid yesterday. What would the -- first of all, what’s the U.S. response to that? And what would be its response should that retaliation take place? And will the Vice President talk about that when he’s in Munich? MR. RHODES: Thanks, Steve. This is Ben. First of all, with respect to those comments, I think what we would say is that the United States is in very close contact with Israel and has been throughout the developments in Syria. We have a shared interest in stability in the region. Frankly, what we believe is that the onus should be on Syria and Iran to meet their own obligations. The Syrian regime has by any measure completely failed to maintain its own domestic and international legitimacy through the actions that it’s taken against its own people principally. At the same time, we’ve been very clear that Syria should not further destabilize the region by transferring, for instance, weaponry to Hezbollah. And we also, of course, have been very clear beyond that that we’re closely monitoring Syria’s chemical weapons as well. With respect to Hezbollah and Iran, the fact that they have dedicated so much support to the Assad regime I think is a further indication that the Assad regime lacks domestic legitimacy and frankly that if left to the Syrian people, they would choose a new government. And that’s why the position of the United States is focused on supporting an end to the Assad regime, which is why we have a significant amount of pressure applied on the Assad regime through sanctions and other means, while at the same time we’re working to bolster a Syrian Opposition Council that we have represented -- we recognize as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, both to indicate that the metrics are turning away from Assad and that there is a broadly inclusive opposition that Syrians can get behind, but also so that we can begin the work of planning for a future within Syria after Bashar al-Assad leaves power. So I think the Vice President, in his meetings with, again, the leadership of the Syrian opposition as well as other international partners, is going to be discussing how we can continue to provide humanitarian assistance into the country to deal with a very grave humanitarian situation. And the U.S. just recently announced another $130 million in humanitarian aid to the Syrian people. We’ll be discussing our continued political and non-lethal support to the opposition that is helping them coalesce and become more organized and provide certain services like medical services to the Syrian people. And we’ll be discussing the political way forward. And what we would like to see from other countries, including Russia, is an acknowledgement that Bashar al-Assad must go and that there needs to be a transition within Syria to a new government. So we’ll be discussing with the various players how we can support a transition within Syria that allows for the aspirations of the Syrian people to be met and for stability to be restored. So these types of threats from Iran and others only underscore just how much they recognize the situation in Syria is getting away from them and that no amount of support that they may provide can reverse the fundamental trend lines that we see in Syria, which is an opposition that is getting stronger and an Assad regime that is getting weaker. Tony, anything? MR. BLINKEN: No, that's great. Q Hi, guys. Thanks for doing that call. It’s sort of a, I guess, follow on Steve’s question, but things were moving fast at the top of the call, and I was just wondering if you could again clearly walk us through the Syria-related meetings; again, with whom the Vice President will meet and the dates and times and kind of configurations of those Syria-related meetings and whether you’re expected to have kind of any developments at the end of this trip as they relate to Syria. Thanks. MR. BLINKEN: Thanks, Margaret. I think Ben covered the substance of Syria very well. Just to refresh on the schedule, first I imagine Syria will be a topic of conversation in his meetings with all of the leaders, so with Chancellor Merkel on Friday, with President Hollande on Monday and with Prime Minister Cameron on Tuesday. But in addition, at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, on the margins of the conference, the Vice President will see the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov. He will see Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. and Arab League Special Representative for Syria, and he will see Moaz al-Khatib and other leaders of the Syria Opposition Council. So in those conversations, which will be Saturday in Munich, we expect there will be for obvious reasons a heavy focus on Syria. Of course, in his meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov there are other subjects to cover, but Syria will certainly be a part of that conversation, as well. Thanks. Q Yes, hello. I’m trying to follow up on -- Mr. Froman was explaining what was going on with the U.S.-EU high-level working group and he was kind of cutting in and out. But maybe -- I was looking for maybe more specifics on kind of is Vice President Biden raising this issue with all the leaders he is meeting with there? And more importantly, why do we still need assurances after a year of exploring this? And kind of, what are the specific areas you’re looking for assurances on? And what signals do you need for this to move forward? MR. FROMAN: Well, thank you. I think this is an issue that a number of European leaders have expressed strong interest in, so I do expect it to come up in conversations that they have with the Vice President. We have been looking at these issues for the last several months, and I think the challenge is to make sure that the high-level political will that we see being expressed by European leaders about the importance and the potential value of this agreement is translated into a willingness to work through what has historically been difficult issues that have divided us. Many of those are not just in the tariff area or market-access areas per se, but also in the regulatory and standards area. And so I think what we doing to the high-level working group is continuing to work through those issues to ensure that there is the will to address them. Q Yes, hi. I’m with See Our Report (ph). My question is, is the Vice President going to meet with any Catholic leaders in Europe? Is the Vice President going to meet with any Catholic leaders in Europe? Hello? MR. BLINKEN: Yes, we heard the question, thank you. He will be meeting with the leaders that I mentioned, including the leaders of France, Germany and the United the Kingdom, as well as other senior leaders including the Russian Foreign Minister. And I haven’t checked the list to find out their religious affiliation, but those are the meetings that he’ll be having. Q Thank you for doing this call. My question is this: Can you tell us what Vice President Biden is going to discuss with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov besides Syria? Will the meeting cover nuclear arms reduction issue? And does this administration really want to kick-start a new round of U.S.-Russian negotiations on nuclear arms control issues, as some media reports have suggested? Thank you. MR. BLINKEN: Thank you. I think it’s a good opportunity to take stock of the work that the United States and Russia have done together over the past four years as well as some of the very real differences we have, and then to think about and talk about the agenda going forward. So, as you know, the Vice President in Munich four years ago talked about resetting the relationship and we've seen very important results from that effort, including the New START nuclear arms reduction agreement; including unprecedented cooperation in putting pressure on Iran with regard to its nuclear program; Afghanistan, where Russian cooperation on helping us bring troops and material into the country is vital; the trade relationship with Russian’s accession to the WTO and implementation of its commitments under the WTO. There’s a long list of very important steps that we've taken together. At the same time, as you know, we have real differences and we don't hide them. We're looking at Syria very intensely. And as Ben suggested, it would be very important for the Russians to put their full weight into a political transition in Syria. That's the best path forward. We have differences over human rights and democracy. We have differences over -- in a number of areas that have been in the media in recent days and weeks. But going forward, there is real potential not only to work through those differences but to continue the agenda that we set over the past four years. And so I'm sure the Vice President and the Foreign Minister will discuss that. That includes nuclear arms reduction. It includes the economic and trade relationship and cooperation on a number of strategic issues. MR. RHODES: I’d just add one comment. On this question of further reductions, the President has spoken to this in the past. For instance, if you look at the speech he gave in Seoul in the spring of last year, he indicated that even as we move forward with the New START reductions and deployed warheads and launchers, that he believes that there’s room to explore the potential for continued reductions, and that, of course, the best way to do so is in a discussion with Russia. That's a general view of the U.S. that we've expressed in the past. We actually expressed it at the signing of the New START treaty in Prague as well. So arms control, nuclear security, nonproliferation is always on the agenda when we talk to Russia, but I would also indicate that this has been something that the President signaled his interest in for some time now. We'll obviously have to carry forward that dialogue going forward. This meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov will focus on a range of issues that Tony underscored as well, though, so I would not suggest that it’s focused on this set of arms control issues, given where we are and given the breadth of the agenda that we have on Syria, Afghanistan and the other issues that Tony went through. Q Hello, thank you for doing the call. My question is, will Vice President Biden, while meeting with Chancellor Merkel, deliver a message that President Obama is planning to visit Germany this year? MR. RHODES: We do not have any -- we don't expect any travel announcements associated with President Obama to be a part of this visit, so we have not yet set President Obama’s full travel schedule for the coming months. We, of course, do know he’s going to the G8 summit that will be taking place in the United Kingdom in June, but beyond that we're still working through what the perspective travel schedule will be. And the Vice President won't be making any announcements with respect to travel by the President on this visit. Q Hello, there. I had a quick question -- an organizational question about the Syria-related meetings of the Vice President in Munich. Could you please give me timing for the bilaterals with Mr. Brahimi and Mr. al-Khatib, and could you please tell me whether there will be a press conference afterwards? MR. BLINKEN: We’ll put out the specific timing I think over the next 24 hours or so. I don’t have that for you yet. I can tell you it will be in the afternoon on Saturday, and there will not be a press conference. Q Hey, thanks a lot for doing the call. You mentioned that the Vice President will be focusing on U.S. support for the mission in Mali when he meets with the French President. Aside from reiterating U.S. support, will the Vice President be bringing any message or offer for stepped up involvement in the effort to dislodge extremists? And if you could clarify which speaker is responding to the question that would be helpful. MR. RHODES: Sure. This is Ben Rhodes. I’ll just make a quick comment and hand it to Tony. As you’ve seen, we have been quite responsive to French requests for assistance in a range of areas, including their planning around their activities, including refueling and a range of logistical support that we’re providing to the French and other countries as they move materiel into Mali. So we have been quite supportive of the French-led effort in Mali. We’re providing a significant amount of military and logistical assistance in that regard. We also have been involved in discussions with the French and many other countries about -- even as we support this offensive against extremist groups, some affiliated with al Qaeda within Mali, we’re also looking at the broader question of how to achieve a lot more lasting political resolution within Mali that includes, again, a process within the country to address underlying political questions that are unresolved, as well as working with neighboring states in Africa who are going to be able to commit resources to help keep the piece in Mali in the aftermath of the French-led operation. Tony, I don’t know if you have anything you want to add to that. MR. BLINKEN: The only thing to add is that I think we’ve seen increasingly a recognition that we have a common problem that we need to contend with together. What we’re seeing across North Africa and parts of the Middle East is an extremist threat that is fueled by the reality of porous borders, ungoverned territory, too readily available weapons, increasing collaboration among some of these groups, and, in many cases, a new government that lacks the capacity and sometimes the will to deal with the problem. And so this requires a comprehensive approach, as Ben said, bringing to bear our political and economic tools, as well as our military tools, but it also requires a common approach. And so this trip is an opportunity, in all of its stops, for the Vice President to confer with leaders about that and to look forward to how we can continue to work together and strengthen our common efforts to deal with this challenge. Q Hi. Thanks, guys. Do you have any more details on the visits by the Bidens to the two military posts in Germany? And is Dr. Biden planning in speaking to an audience in Grafenwoehr? MR. BLINKEN: We’ll put out more details tomorrow. So I’m sorry, right now I can’t go beyond what I told you. But you’ll have a more detailed schedule within the next 24 hours. MR. RHODES: The only thing I’d add to that is that Dr. Biden, together with the First Lady, has been quite involved in outreach to military families and military communities. So I think this trip is an opportunity for her to extend the engagement that she’s had with Michelle Obama in reaching out to military families here in the United States but also around the world; and there is, of course, a very significant community in Germany where they’ll be visiting. Q Hi, guys. Thank you for the call. I was wondering if during the meeting with Chancellor Merkel, the U.K. and the dropping out of the EU, Cameron’s speech all that is going to be a topic; and also, the recent visit of Morsi in Berlin, the Egyptian President. MR. RHODES: I think that Egypt will certainly, likely, be a topic of discussion. The United States together with Germany and other European allies have been working with the Egyptian government to discuss ways to stabilize their economy while also ensuring that they’re moving forward with their political reform efforts. So I think -- even as they’re dealing with a very significant challenge within Egypt right now. So I think it will be a topic in that regard. With respect to the European Union, obviously it’s up to the member states of the European Union to make their own decisions about the future of the EU. With respect to Prime Minister Cameron’s speech, I think you saw our statement that we obviously support his comments about the important role of the United Kingdom within the European Union. And they’ll be continuing to take a look, obviously in the years to come, at how to carry forward that relationship. So again, we leave it to EU member states to have those discussions. I think, more broadly, the role of the United States as a friend and partner to the EU on economic issues and foreign policy issues will be a topic of discussion. But I don’t know if Mike has anything to add to that. MR. FROMAN: Just I’d simply say it’s in our interest that there be a strong U.K. and a strong European Union. MR. RHODES: Great. Well, Tony, anything else to add before we wrap up here? MR. BLINKEN: No, thanks. Thanks for being on the call, and we look forward to putting out more details as we go along. MR. RHODES: Great. Thanks, everybody. And I look forward to being in touch in the days ahead. END11:46 A.M. EST

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