White House Gaggle

Guantanamo:

Two Uzbek detainees from Guantanamo Bay will be taken by Ireland. The White House is making progress in closing Gitmo. If they will stay in detention is a question for the Pentagon.

Flu Virus:

There has been a question of flu virus on Capitol Hill and pages being treated for it. There is no known virus at the White House campus. A press person joked as to if there was could they be sent away?

Health Insurance:

The President will address insurance reform and consumer protection in the town hall meetings today.
President Obama will talk about pre-existing and out of pocket expenses.
Asked about Rahm Emmanuel on the Hill yesterday, Mr. Gibbs answered " maybe its more compelling if it comes from Capitol Hill." Mr. Gibbs said that they are talking about issues and making progress.
The Senate Finance Committee is working on a plan. Mr. Gibbs said that the President is concerned with choice and competition and that the differences will have to be ironed out. He said there are "many more twists to go." The President is also concerned about pre-existing and exorbitant co-pays or out of pocket deductibles. On Boehner's comment that the "bill leads to euthanasia”, Gibbs said that the President believes that these are important forums to address false information. Gibbs also said that if you look back to 93 and 94, many of the same messages were used.
Asked about the soda/sugar tax he said it was not on the President's list to pay for health care.
On the Christina Romer call today, Gibbs referred to the increased cost of health care contributing
to job loss and the ramifications for small business.

Travel Plans during the Congressional Recess:

Yes, but there are no details yet and the President will continue to talk about his priorities.

Cabinet and Senior Staff for Retreat:

Robert Gibbs said that since the Eisenhower administration staff and cabinet members have
gotten together. There is time now without having such time crunch. Some of it, said Gibbs, is "get to
know your stuff". The President's schedule is Friday night and part of Saturday. The retreat will happen at
Blair House.

Secretary Clinton Thailand:
Mr. Gibbs said that our policy is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

OK Everybody, Back In The Pool.

Coffee Brown, MD, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News


Atypical Flu Update 05/06/09
Today’s numbers: 642 cases in 41 states. There are now 2 deaths
reported with one being wholly American. Whereas the first was a
Mexican child who contracted the disease in Mexico, the second, per
WebMD, had no reported connection with Mexico other than living near
the border in Texas. She was young, but had other conditions’
“co-morbidities,” including recent childbirth, obesity, and recent
pneumonia. Counting her as the as the only native fatality so far, the
mortality rate in the U.S. is 0.1 percent.
Worldwide, there 1516 confirmed cases in 22 countries, with 29 deaths
in Mexico out of 822 confirmed cases (3.5 percent mortality), and no
deaths so far reported outside of Mexico and the U.S.
The World Health Organization is still not recommending travel
restrictions, except to advise people who feel ill to stay home.
WHO alert status remains at stage 5. Clusters of cases do not seem to
be occurring yet, which may mean that the virus weakens with time.
Nevertheless, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remind us
that we have weeks of this contagion to go yet.
The overall severity of this flu outside of Mexico is “mild to
moderate” per the CDC.
Per Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, “School
closing has gotten a lot of attention. There's a balance with the
importance of making sure our children go to school every day. The
virus transmits very quickly child to child, the end result has been a
more mild version of the disease than was originally feared and the
lethality seems at a much less significant level”
The current guidelines are to keep schools open, even if some students
get the flu, as would be done during any normal flu season, she says,
though that makes it even more important to keep symptomatic children
home.
“So we're urging parents to take steps if your child is sick, please
do not send your child to school. If a teacher is sick, please don't
come to school,” sebelius said.
And home means home. “And parents, don't turn around and keep your
child home from school and send him or her to the mall. This is really
about staying home,” Sebelius added.
The recommended period of “grounding” is seven days, even if symptoms
resolve, because that is how long sufferers may remain contagious.
So, did the CDC, WHO and media over-react? This flu is looking less
scary by the day, but it started with a significant number of
fatalities, and it was clearly a very different strain than had been
seen before. While we may start to feel some relief at this point,
these things can change quickly. Washing our hands, avoiding others
when we have symptoms, and insisting on common courtesy (Hey, cover
your mouth when you cough), may help reduce the 35,000 deaths per
year, and billions of dollars in lost productivity we have come to
think of as “normal.”

The Cost Of Swine Flu Unknown

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

A hearing on the economic outlook turned to swine flu today and raised the question “are we ready to cover the costs?”

Dr. Christina Romer, Chair of the Council for Economic Advisors, came to the House Joint Economic with upbeat news that, “during the first one hundred days if the Obama administration...the Recovery Act has already saved or created about 150,000 jobs,” said Romer. Adding “that most of the benefits of the Recovery Act are yet to come... our
estimates remain that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act spending will create or save 3.5 million jobs before the end of next year.”

This information was over-shadowed however when Congressman Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) turned the topic to the developing outbreak of swine flu. He asked Dr. Romer, “How should we view the added uncertainty in the economy both here and abroad that may be created the threat of a major health flu pandemic around the world?”

Romer said that swine flu was of “major concern” to the administration. In terms of the economic effects caused by a swine flu pandemic, Romer said effects would depend on “how severe it is,” and that they are working on collating information concerning the swine flu outbreak. At the moment the true cost factor looked “uncertain,” said Romer.

Adding to her point Romer said, “uncertainty is probably the biggest effect at this point. Whether it will make consumers nervous. Whether it will, you know, government will have to take actions, that unfortunately will have economic consequences, that is what we are facing.”

Closing on this topic Romer stressed, that the top priority of the administration was to, “do whatever it takes to ensure that lives are saved.”

The cost of the swine flu pandemic to the American citizen remains unknown until the severity of the outbreak unveiled.