A Year Ago Today – Pete Souza: The afternoon sun beams down on the President during a campaign rally in Delray, Fla. Oct. 23, 2012
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Presidential Daily Schedule (All Times Eastern)
8:15AM: VP Biden meets with Pakistan PM Sharif
10:45AM: Pres. Obama and VP Biden receive the Presidential Daily Briefing
11:30AM: First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden host a tea with Mrs. Kalsoom Sharif
12:00PM: Press Sec. Jay Carney Briefs the press
12:30PM: Pres. Obama and VP Biden meet for lunch
2:10PM: Pres. Obama and VP Biden hold a bilateral meeting with PM Sharif
4:15PM: Pres. Obama and VP Biden meet with Treasury Sec. Jack Lew
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Colleen McCain Nelson: White House Taps Zients To Fix Health-Care Portal
The Obama administration has tapped Jeffrey Zients, who has been a top economic adviser to the White House, to help lead efforts to fix the problem-plagued online health-insurance marketplaces. White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Mr. Zients, who served as acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, will work in cooperation with the Health and Human Services team to provide management advice and counsel.
His enlistment is part of the “tech surge” aimed at resolving the technical issues that have hampered the rollout of healthcare.gov, slowing signups for health insurance and enflaming criticism of the Affordable Care Act. This will be a temporary assignment for Mr. Zients, who is slated to become the next director of the National Economic Council on Jan. 1. He left the White House earlier this year and was announced as the NEC pick last month.
More here
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A passenger aboard Nighthawk 3 looks out the helicopter window during a flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport en route to Dyke Park landing zone in Stamford, Conn., Oct. 23, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Jonathan Cohn: ObamaCare Has Had A Brutal Few Days, But It’s The Next Few Weeks That Count
President Obama’s Rose Garden speech Monday was supposed to send two messages—one, that he is determined to fix Obamacare’s troubled federal websites and, two, that the law is already helping many people get insurance. I happen to believe both claims And there are genuine reasons for optimism, if you’re looking for them. The administration isn’t lying when it says the federal sites are functioning better than they were.
More people are finally getting through those opening stages of the process. The underlying architecture is also getting much-needed attention, although it’s not the kind of stuff people will notice right away. For example, a source familiar with the situation tells me that the system now has much better “instrumentation”—in effect, spots in the code that allow HHS to figure out how well different parts of the process are working.
That will make it much easier to pinpoint problems and check fixes as they take effect. Meanwhile, the states running their own sites are doing a much better job—the reports (and first-hand accounts I’ve heard) from California, Connecticut, Kentucky, New York, and Washington state are proof that the online system can work and, for the many people living in those states, are working already. That’s a whole lot of people for whom Obamacare is doing what it’s supposed to do.
More here
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Igor Volsky: Amid ObamaCare’s Struggles, Government Run Health Care Shines
In these early days of implementation, the real standout is the government-run Medicaid program that provides health care insurance to Americans under 133 percent of the federal poverty line.
In fact, a survey of news reports from the states that have chosen to expand their Medicaid under the Affordable Care, shows that the program is responsible for thousands and of new enrollments
More here
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Think Progress: Poll: White Conservatives Only Group Opposed To Reducing Racial And Ethnic Inequality
It is an undeniable fact that the United States is becoming increasingly diverse, rapidly heading toward the day when there will no longer be any clear racial or ethnic majority in the U.S. population. You might think America, with its long history of racial panics, might be freaking out.
But it turns out, according to a massive new study of public attitudes about rising diversity by CAP and PolicyLink, that’s not so. Americans are reacting amazingly well to growing diversity — with the curious exception of white conservatives. With the exception of white conservatives, Americans across the board support “new steps to reduce racial and ethnic inequality in America through investments in areas like education, job training, and infrastructure improvement.”
More here
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Ben Casselman: Don’t Blame Health Law For High Part-Time Employment
Don’t blame the health law for high levels of part-time employment. In its statistics, the Labor Department considers anyone who usually works less than 35 hours per week to be “part-time.” The health law, however, is stricter: It counts anyone who works at least 30 hours a week as a full-time employee. That means that someone who works 34 hours a week would show up in Labor data as a part-time worker, but would still qualify as a full-time worker under Obamacare, and therefore would be subject to the employer mandate.
If the health law were driving employers to cut employees’ hours, the most vulnerable workers would likely be those working just above the 30-hour cutoff. That means the data would show a decline in those working 30 to 34 hours and an increase in those working less than 30 hours. That isn’t what’s happening. The share of part-timers who say they usually work between 30 and 34 hours at their main job has been roughly flat over the past three years, at about 28%.
More here
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https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/392804375288356864
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Bloomberg: Hollywood Aids McConnell Opponent Grimes In Kentucky Senate Race
Alison Lundergan Grimes’s first campaign fundraising report reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood and Kentucky Democratic politics. Grimes raised $2.5 million in the third quarter from donors including entertainment industry figures like Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Bryan Cranston, Jerry Seinfeld, Leonardo DiCaprio, Barbra Streisand, Chris Rock, Jon Hamm, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Ron Howard, Cameron Diaz, James Cameron, Aaron Sorkin, Ben Stiller, Leonard Nimoy, Rob Reiner, Kirk Douglas, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Nicolas Cage.
More here
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Greg Sargent: How Dems Should Make This Fall’s Fights All About Jobs
So Dems should make a big push to curb what Greenstein called “tax entitlements,” i.e., loopholes such as carried interest. Second: Policymakers should push for an extension in unemployment benefits set to run out at the end of the year, possibly an easier get from Republicans than new taxes. Greenstein noted that unemployment benefits are one of several things that “give the biggest bang for the buck in economic activity per dollar of federal cost. Third: Infrastructure spending.
More here
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https://twitter.com/SeanLavery/status/392807447468838912
https://twitter.com/WiForward/status/392808003075706880
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Igor Volsky: How Obamacare Will Save The Federal Government $190 Billion
Lower than projected premiums under the Affordable Care Act will save the federal government $190 billion over 10 years and increase the law’s deficit reduction by 174 percent to almost $300 billion, a new analysis from the Center for American Progress has found.
The report, from Topher Spiro and Jonathan Gruber, bolsters President Obama’s claims on Monday that despite the ongoing technical problems surrounding HealthCare.gov, “the product of the Affordable Care Act for people without health insurance is quality health insurance that’s affordable.” In fact, the emergence of new insurers and increased competition within the law’s marketplaces has lowered premiums below Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections from March of 2012.
More here
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Washington Post: Democrats Rally Around Health-Care Law
A new Gallup poll shows support has increased four points since August, thanks to a rise in support from Democrats. Overall, 45 percent of Americans back the health-care law — up from 41 percent in August — while 50 percent oppose it. That increase in support is almost exclusively because of Democrats.
While 71 percent of Democrats backed the law in August, 83 percent support it now. Nearly all of the 12 percent of Democrats who had expressed no opinion of the law in August now support it. The poll was conducted Oct. 18-20, after the government shutdown ended last week and as the media was beginning to turn more of its attention to glitches on the HealthCare.gov Web site.
More here
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On This Day:
A U.S. Marine braces himself against the wind generated by Marine One as it lands at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Oct. 23, 2009. The scene is reflected in the open door and fuselage of Air Force One. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Barack Obama, at right, waits backstage before delivering remarks at a reception for Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick at the Westin Copley Place hotel in Boston, Mass., Oct. 23, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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The Obama Diary 
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