GOP looks to Virginia for victory Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour is the latest Republican stumping for Robert F. McDonnell Anita Kumar
  

 Five ways to reform health care
By Tim Pawlenty
Sunday, February 14, 2010
 President Obama has asked Republicans to bring ideas to a health-care summit on Feb. 25. This is an opportunity for Washington to start fresh and for conservatives to lead the way after the apparent defeat of the Democrats' plan. In response to the president's challenge, here are five common-sense ways to tackle runaway health-care costs: (1) Incentivize patients to be smart consumers: When people buy food, clothes or cars, they compare prices and quality. Why should health care be any different? In Minnesota, we've created incentives for public employees to be wise health-care consumers and given them the information to make smart decisions. Under our system, if patients go to a high-quality, low-cost clinic, they pay less; if they don't, they pay more. As a result, the vast majority has migrated to more cost-efficient health-care providers, and we've seen zero or small increases in premiums since 2005. Any federal reforms should similarly make quality and costs more transparent, and incentivize smarter health-care decisions. (2) Pay for performance: Under America's current system, health-care providers are rewarded for the number of procedures they perform, not for their performance. As a result, the system encourages unnecessary tests that increase costs. In Minnesota, we started an innovative program to measure and set performance metrics for providers and make the results public. We are changing our payment system to reward quality rather than quantity. Congress should pass reforms that allow people to stop paying for procedures and start paying for results. (3) Liability reform: Another way to cut down on unnecessary procedures is to reduce the threat of lawsuits facing health-care providers. This can be a tricky issue for many Democrats, so I was encouraged last summer when President Obama nevertheless opened the door to liability reforms. At a minimum, we should establish uniform standards for medical liability limits to discourage interstate jury shopping that drives up everybody's health-care costs. (4) Interstate health-care insurance: There is no reason a Minnesotan should not be able to buy health insurance from other states. Doing so would dramatically increase insurance choices and cut costs through improved competition. I've proposed legislation to allow Minnesotans to buy health insurance from other states and am working with other governors to establish an interstate purchasing pool with strict standards. This system would be modeled after the similar insurance exchange that has made life insurance easier to purchase in more than 30 states since 2006. The federal government could facilitate a similar initiative for interstate health insurance. (5) Modernize health insurance: We need to reform the traditional, employee-based health-care system. Workers are likely to switch jobs many times over their careers, but the current system often punishes individuals who switch jobs or start businesses. That makes no sense. We should make health insurance transferable so employees can keep their coverage if they switch jobs; prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against individuals whose preexisting conditions were covered under insurance…

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 A U.S. airstrike killed Saleh Ali Nabhan, the head of al-Qaeda in East Africa, in September. He was wanted in connection with the 1998 U.S. Embassy attacks in Kenya, at left, and in TanzaniaUnder Obama, more targeted killings than captures in counterterrorism efforts
By Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 14, 2010
When a window of opportunity opened to strike the leader of al-Qaeda in East Africa last September, U.S. Special Operations forces prepared several options. They could obliterate his vehicle with an airstrike as he drove through southern Somalia. Or they could fire from helicopters that could land at the scene to confirm the kill. Or they could try to take him alive. The White House authorized the second option. On the morning of Sept. 14, helicopters flying from a U.S. ship off the Somali coast blew up a car carrying Saleh Ali Nabhan. While several hovered overhead, one set down long enough for troops to scoop up enough of the remains for DNA verification. Moments later, the helicopters were headed back to the ship. The strike was considered a major success, according to senior administration and military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified operation and other sensitive matters. But the opportunity to interrogate one of the most wanted U.S. terrorism targets was gone forever. The Nabhan decision was one of a number of similar choices the administration has faced over the past year as President Obama has escalated U.S. attacks on the leadership of al-Qaeda and its allies around the globe. The result has been dozens of targeted killings and no reports of high-value detentions. Although senior administration officials say that no policy determination has been made to emphasize kills over captures, several factors appear to have tipped the balance in that direction. The Obama administration has authorized such attacks more frequently than the George W. Bush administration did in its final years, including in countries where U.S. ground operations are officially unwelcome or especially dangerous. Improvements in electronic surveillance and precision targeting have made killing from a distance much more of a sure thing. At the same time, options for where to keep U.S. captives have dwindled. Republican critics, already scornful of limits placed on interrogation of the suspect in the Christmas Day bombing attempt, charge that the administration has been too reluctant to risk an international incident or a domestic lawsuit to capture senior terrorism figures alive and imprison them. "Over a year after taking office, the administration has still failed to answer the hard questions about what to do if we have the opportunity to capture and detain a terrorist overseas, which has made our terror-fighters reluctant to capture and left our allies confused," Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Friday. "If given a choice between killing or capturing, we would probably kill." Some military and intelligence officials, citing what they…