Houston DWI Attorney Paul B. Kennedy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Democrats' control of a ample majority in the Senate - additional the House - would advance that President Barack Obama is within reach of overhauling the nation's bloom affliction arrangement this fall.

But the numbers mask a added complicated reality: Obama and Democratic leaders have bashful leverage over several pivotal Senate Democrats who are added concerned about their next election or feel they have little to lose by opposing their party's hierarchy.

One is still smarting from actuality affected to carelessness next year's election. Another had to leave the Democratic Party to break in office. And some are from states that Obama absent badly last year.

These factors will limit the president's ability to play his strongest card - an appeal for affair adherence and Democratic accomplishment - in aggravating to aggregation the 60 votes his allies will need this abatement to overcome a Republican filibuster in the 100-member Senate.

When assembly face a tough vote, their uppermost thought is "survival," said Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican who spent three agreement in the Senate.

On a very few occasions, Simpson said, then-President George H.W. Bush asked him to casting a vote acceptable to cause him political problems back home. That was conceivably three times in 18 years, said Simpson, who held a GOP administration post. "I swallowed adamantine and went over the cliff," he said.

But it's a sacrifice that presidents and affair leaders should not count on, he said.

The Democratic leaders' limited leverage will complicate the advance for allowing the government to sell allowance ! in compe tition with clandestine companies. Some Senate Democrats who oppose the idea are from states that voted heavily adjoin Obama last fall.

Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces a potentially tough re-election race next year in Arkansas, where Obama absent to Republican John McCain by 20 percentage points. She says she will abject her bloom affliction votes on what is best for Arkansans.

Choice and competition among insurers are good, Lincoln said, but "I've disqualified out a government-funded and a government-operated plan."

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, where Obama absent by a agnate margin, said she ability be willing to let some states try "fallback or trigger" mechanisms that would create a accessible option if residents don't have enough allowance choices.

But she told reporters, "I'm not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be."

Another Democratic senator, who additionally may prove alert of Obama's overtures, takes the opposite stand.

"I would not support a bill that does not have a accessible option," said Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill. "That position will not change."

Burris' willingness to bend could prove crucial this abatement if Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., need every accessible vote in crafting a compromise, such as a national accessible option that is triggered if certain allowance availability targets aren't met.

But Burris may be in no mood to play ball. Obama and added top Democrats acutely criticized his appointment to the Senate in December by an ethically tainted governor, Illinois' Rod Blagojevich, and they affected Burris to carelessness hopes of acceptable election in 2010 by making it clear they would not back him.

In short, Burris, 72, has around annihilation to lose by defying his party's lea! ders and voting as he pleases.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is addition potentially crucial senator with tenuous ties to the Democratic Party's hierarchy. Rejected by Connecticut's Democratic voters in the 2006 primary, he kept his Senate seat by running as an independent. He now calls himself an Independent Democrat.

Lieberman has criticized the bloom affliction bill that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee, but it and added bloom bills are undergoing changes.

Another centrist Democrat whose vote is uncertain is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, a political battlefield state.

"I want to apperceive what works for families and small businesses," said Bayh, adding that he ability back accessible allowance options run by states, not the federal government.

It's accessible that Obama and affair leaders eventually will ask Democrats such as Bayh, in the name of affair loyalty, to vote to block a GOP filibuster of a bloom bill alike if they plan to vote adjoin the bill on final passage. The strategy ability enable Democrats to aggregation the 60 votes needed on a crucial procedural catechism and then pass the bill with a simple majority.

Bayh said that if a affair leader "is allurement some of us to enable the access of legislation that we anticipate would be harmful to the bodies of our state, I don't anticipate that's a fair thing to ask."

It's accessible that centrist Democrats are holding out for favors from Obama and affair leaders, such as pet projects for their states or help in their next campaign. Obama already has lavished special attention on some of them.

He invited Bayh to the White House last week for a babble about bloom affliction and the deficit. In an account that led to acceptable publicity back home, Bayh told Indiana reporters that the president "was allurement for my administration on bot! h of tho se issues."

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Take a hard look now. A new agency that consumers were promised would make bankers, credit card companies and mortgage lenders treat them fairly will never look as strong again.

Legislation to establish President Barack Obama's proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency cleared a key hurdle this week. But it's already been watered down from what Obama proposed and will likely become even weaker when it comes up against higher hurdles on the House floor and in the Senate. It may even die along the way.

Banks flatly oppose a new consumer agency, arguing their current regulators can handle the task. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has weighed in with a $2 million ad campaign against the plan. And some industry claims, particularly those from bankers back home, have proved persuasive with many lawmakers.

Ahead lie enormous obstacles: potentially debilitating amendments on the House floor and, ultimately, a tougher Senate landscape, where Republican support is essential to passage of any new financial regulation scheme.

"If they are insisting on a separate agency, a stand alone agency, it's going to be difficult to do a bipartisan bill," Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, top Republican on the Senate banking committee, said in an interview. "I wouldn't be interested in a stand alone consumer agency."

The committee's Democratic chairman, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, has championed the agency and voiced frustration over the industry criticism.

There are "all sorts of ways" to address consumer protection, Dodd said in a brief interview, and emphasized the need to re-regulate large financial institutions so they can't again tr! igger ca tastrophic failures that ripple throughout the economy.

"Of all the things we're doing, this fixation and this preoccupation with that one issue is a little misplaced," he said of attacks on the consumer agency.

Hints of looming pitfalls for a new consumer agency were evident in the debate this week before the House Financial Services Committee. Even there, where the president's party holds a 42-29 edge, Obama didn't get all he wanted. Up until the end, White House aides buttonholed individual members, fighting unsuccessfully against yet another exemption to the powers of the proposed consumer protection agency.

The panel's chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, acknowledged later that of all the aspects of financial regulation that he is contending with, the consumer agency was politically the most difficult. Indeed, consumer advocates applauded him for preserving as many consumer protections as he did.

Still, Travis Plunkett of the Consumer Federation of America called the bill "battered and bruised."

Obama had called for a robust agency to police the fine print of credit cards, mortgages and other services ranging from payday loans to auto financing. The president wanted to make banks offer standardized "plain vanilla" mortgages, simple no frills loans that customers could compare to more elaborate mortgages. He wanted to make lenders communicate with their customers more clearly. And he wanted to invest the new agency with power to examine bank books, along with the other regulators already checking banks for their safety and soundness.

As the legislation stands now, all those measures are gone or compromised.

The idea of standardized mortgages, which administration officials had held up as a key protection for consumers, proved hard to sell even to Democrats. In the end, it wasn't a matter of bowing to the big banking lobb! ies but rather lawmakers listening to business leaders back home - the bankers, auto dealers and Rotarians who make up the fabric of local politics

Moderate committee Democrats succeeded in exempting thousands of banks from examination by the consumer agency, though they'd still have to abide by its rules. They argued that small community banks would be overburdened with regulators and hadn't been the cause of the financial crisis anyway. But the standard measure of a community bank is one that holds assets of $1 billion or less. There are about 7,500 such banks across the country.

The committee, however, decided to make any bank with assets under $10 billion off limits to the new consumer agency's examiners. There were also exemptions for retailers, title insurance providers, and, finally, auto dealers, although the scope of the latter is somewhat uncertain.

It was the auto dealers exception that the White House fought to no avail Thursday. While the agency would still regulate firms that provide auto financing themselves, consumer advocates say dealers are the ones who make the financing pitch no matter who actually makes the loan and should be equally covered.

The Obama administration also wanted states to have the right to write consumer laws that are tougher than federal regulations. Facing opposition from some moderate Democrats, the committee adopted a compromise that gives federal regulators the right to pre-empt state laws on a case-by-case basis.

In many instances, the changes had grudging support from most Democrats but passed by voice vote with the backing of committee Republicans. Ultimately, though, only one Republican voted for the final legislation.

"In the end," said committee Democrat Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, "we have weakened legislation that the opposition is not going to support."

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The bi ll is H.R. 3126.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Jim Kuhnhenn covers economics and politics for The Associated Press.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Thursday forcefully rejected criticism from former Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republicans that President Barack Obama's Afghanistan decision is taking too long.

"What Vice President Cheney calls dithering, President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously."

Obama is nearing a decision on whether to significantly expand the U.S. war posture in Afghanistan by honoring a military request for thousands of additional forces. The decision had been expected as early as mid-August, when Obama's new war commander prepared a harsh assessment of deteriorating conditions in the 8-year-old conflict, and now is expected in what Gibbs calls "the coming weeks."

Obama is also weighing with his national security team whether to focus more narrowly on al-Qaida terrorists believed to be hiding in Pakistan.

Top commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's still-secret troop request outlines three options - from as many as 80,000 more troops to as few as 10,000 - but favors a compromise of 40,000 more forces, officials have told The Associated Press. There now are 67,000 American troops in Afghanistan, and 1,000 more are headed there by the end of December.

The previous top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, submitted a request for more troops that went unfulfilled by former President George W. Bush. Obama partly granted that request in March when he ordered an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to go to Afghanistan this year.

Cheney said in a speech Wednesday night that Obama needs to "do what it takes to win" and that "signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries."

Taking a similar tack on Thursday, former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized the administration during a speech in Fort Worth, Texas, suggesting Obama has projected confusion onto the Afghanistan conflict in his public statements.

Gibbs said such comments were curious "given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March."

Other Democrats chimed in to defend the president, despite opposition among congressional Democrats to a major expansion of the U.S. war effort.

"Republicans have developed a troubling pattern of blaming President Obama for trying to fix all the problems that they created," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., also defended Obama, when asked about Cheney's criticism. "I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan," he said on MSNBC. "I want him to take the time to get it right."

Cheney had also taken issue with statements out of the White House that the Obama administration had to start from scratch to develop a strategy for a conflict begun in 2001, the first year of the Bush presidency.

The Bush administration presented to Obama's transition team the review of the Afghanistan war that it undertook just before leaving office and was asked to keep it under wraps, Cheney said. A White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, later disputed that characterization and said the report was not kept under wraps.

Meanwhile, Obama worked ! Thursday on a strategy to prevent fraud from occurring in Afghanistan in its runoff presidential election set for Nov. 7.

In an hourlong videoconference from the White House Situation Room, Obama and other top advisers heard a briefing and recommendations from the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Gibbs would not specify what steps the U.S. is taking with Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission to avoid the problems that marred the original election on Aug. 20.

President Hamid Karzai faces his main challenger, ex-Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, in the runoff.

Obama is not necessarily going to put off his decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan until after the run-off election, as some - including Democratic Sen. John Kerry - have strongly suggested he do.

"It could be before the runoff. It might be after the runoff," Gibbs said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he will prod NATO allies this week for more economic and security aid to Afghanistan while trying to sidestep the debate over more troops.

NATO nations have supplied 36,000 troops, and NATO officials have signaled they won't ask their nations to send more until Obama makes a move.

Gates said there are enough other topics to discuss with NATO allies during a defense chiefs' gathering in Bratislava, Slovakia, this week.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the allies must do more to enable Afghan forces to eventually assume responsibility for security in their country.

NATO currently has 59 training teams working with the Afghan army. Alliance officials say they need the allies to come up with nine more to fulfill present plans that call for an expansion of the Afghan forces from the present 94,000 to 134,000. But if a future expansion plan boosting the Afghan arm! y to 400 ,000 troops is approved, NATO will need a total of 103 training teams on the ground.

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Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes contributed to this report from Bratislava, Slovakia.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- In Congress these days, the health care debate is as much about patience as patients.

In a closed-door meeting of feisty House Democrats this past week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., served notice that in these final days before the Senate and House present comprehensive bills to overhaul the nation's system, hers is running short.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., had interrupted Pelosi's presentation about one version of the bill with questions about its cost. According to Pomeroy and others, she cut him off - twice - with a question of her own:

Is there any version you could support?

Yes, Pomeroy said, but not the one most likely to succeed.

Pelosi moved on.

To the White House and Democratic leaders, Pelosi's question is the only one that matters at this late date. The answers help divide lawmakers into two columns: "yes" and "yes, if" under certain conditions. In another private meeting Friday, Pelosi forced her rank and file on the record by asking for a show of hands to register support for the public option plan she prefers which would reimburse doctors at Medicare rates plus 5 percent.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., select committee chairmen and senior White House officials are meeting nightly in search of a bill that could win the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

At the White House, President Barack Obama is willing to play lobbyist in chief, but first he needs a bill.

So close to that pivot point and getting close to year's end, it's no longer a debate about whether there will be a health care bill. The! questio ns are when, how - and who can compromise.

Democratic leaders expect their members, looking ahead to next year's elections, to vote for a health care bill despite any misgivings. But the vote-counters have no real way of knowing until each chamber produces a bill.

That's why negotiators have slogged through months of hearings, hundreds of amendments and meetings with members that require interminable listening, waiting, reassuring, cajoling and answering questions from the recalcitrant.

For Reid and Pelosi, that process continues. Making a member feel heard - and promising something he or she can boast about at home - can pay off.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., sent out a blaring news release Friday after her meeting with Reid, saying she raised "the unique challenges Louisiana is facing in terms of Medicaid and the special concerns I have about teaching hospitals." She said he understood these challenges and considered ways to address the problems.

Patience is limited, however.

Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., had a testy exchange after Schumer made comments on cable news that some saw as pressuring the Nevada Democrat to make up his mind about putting a government-run insurance option in the Senate bill.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Friday that patience among negotiators runs out "a little more often now" than earlier in the process.

"I say, 'Hey, we are in this together. Sixty votes. Let's keep our eye on the ball,'" he said.

The pressure on Democratic lawmakers is enormous.

The success of a health care bill is largely the success of the Democrats who control Congress and the president they helped elect. In a time of lingering recession, there is no more compelling pocketbook issue than health care overhaul. It's ! an effor t that's intensely personal because it could affect every American.

Much depends on each lawmaker's needs - political, substantive, even temperamental - leading up to an election in which all 435 House members and one-third of the 100-member Senate face election. The calculus is different for each member on the fence.

The vote of one might hinge on fear of voters' cries about government-run health care. A lawmaker with an eye on growing deficits might want to know about containing costs. What someone might really want is the ego-stroke and the political cover of a personal appeal from the president.

An awkward meeting with Obama in the Oval Office Thursday evening illustrated just how far senators are from putting those pieces together. The only takeaway not likely to be disputed: Reid grabbed an apple on the way out.

Neither of the government-run options had received pledges of support from 60 senators but both could hit that threshold, Reid told Obama, according to congressional officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive talks.

One version would use the public option as a threat that would kick in if private insurers do not lower premium costs by certain deadlines. Some liberal senators would have trouble voting for that one, Reid said. The other would allow states to opt out of the public option, chief proponent Schumer told Obama.

The meeting ended with the president pledging to help rally support for whichever version crosses the 60-vote threshold first.

For Reid, it was back to his office and the phones. On Friday, Reid was meeting one on one - with no staff - with Landrieu, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and Baucus, whose committee had passed one of the two Senate health care bills.

"We're having a debate, and members have to reflect and represent their districts," Pel! osi said . "And we're hearing from them."

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Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Charles Babington contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- In Congress these days, the health care debate is as much about patience as patients.

In a closed-door meeting of feisty House Democrats this past week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., served notice that in these final days before the Senate and House present comprehensive bills to overhaul the nation's system, hers is running short.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., had interrupted Pelosi's presentation about one version of the bill with questions about its cost. According to Pomeroy and others, she cut him off - twice - with a question of her own:

Is there any version you could support?

Yes, Pomeroy said, but not the one most likely to succeed.

Pelosi moved on.

To the White House and Democratic leaders, Pelosi's question is the only one that matters at this late date. The answers help divide lawmakers into two columns: "yes" and "yes, if" under certain conditions. In another private meeting Friday, Pelosi forced her rank and file on the record by asking for a show of hands to register support for the public option plan she prefers.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., select committee chairmen and senior White House officials are meeting nightly in search of a bill that could win the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

At the White House, President Barack Obama is willing to play lobbyist in chief, but first he needs a bill.

So close to that pivot point and getting close to year's end, it's no longer a debate about whether there will be a health care bill. The questions are when, how - and who can compromise.

Democratic leaders expect their members, looking ahead to next year's elections, to vote for a health care bill despite any misgivings. But the vote-counters have no real way of knowing until each chamber produces a bill.

That's why negotiators have slogged through months of hearings, hundreds of amendments and meetings with members that require interminable listening, waiting, reassuring, cajoling and answering questions from the recalcitrant.

For Reid and Pelosi, that process continues. Making a member feel heard - and promising something he or she can boast about at home - can pay off.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., sent out a blaring news release Friday after her meeting with Reid, saying she raised "the unique challenges Louisiana is facing in terms of Medicaid and the special concerns I have about teaching hospitals." She said he understood these challenges and considered ways to address the problems.

Patience is limited, however.

Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., had a testy exchange after Schumer made comments on cable news that some saw as pressuring the Nevada Democrat to make up his mind about putting a government-run insurance option in the Senate bill.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Friday that patience among negotiators runs out "a little more often now" than earlier in the process.

"I say, 'Hey, we are in this together. Sixty votes. Let's keep our eye on the ball,'" he said.

The pressure on Democratic lawmakers is enormous.

The success of a health care bill is largely the success of the Democrats who control Congress and the president they helped elect. In a time of lingering recession, there is no more compelling pocketbook issue than health care overhaul. It's an effort that's intensely personal because it could affect eve! ry Ameri can.

Much depends on each lawmaker's needs - political, substantive, even temperamental - leading up to an election in which all 435 House members and one-third of the 100-member Senate face election. The calculus is different for each member on the fence.

The vote of one might hinge on fear of voters' cries about government-run health care. A lawmaker with an eye on growing deficits might want to know about containing costs. What someone might really want is the ego-stroke and the political cover of a personal appeal from the president.

An awkward meeting with Obama in the Oval Office Thursday evening illustrated just how far senators are from putting those pieces together. The only takeaway not likely to be disputed: Reid grabbed an apple on the way out.

Neither of the government-run options had received pledges of support from 60 senators but both could hit that threshold, Reid told Obama, according to congressional officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive talks.

One version would use the public option as a threat that would kick in if private insurers do not lower premium costs by certain deadlines. Some liberal senators would have trouble voting for that one, Reid said. The other would allow states to opt out of the public option, chief proponent Schumer told Obama.

The meeting ended with the president pledging to help rally support for whichever version crosses the 60-vote threshold first.

For Reid, it was back to his office and the phones. On Friday, Reid was meeting one on one - with no staff - with Landrieu, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and Baucus, whose committee had passed one of the two Senate health care bills.

"We're having a debate, and members have to reflect and represent their districts," Pelosi said. "And we're hearing from them."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the special interest war over health care, the White House and congressional Democrats have the nation's drug makers and hospitals generally on their side; the insurance industry, not so much.

Now the bill's supporters are making a play to lock in the American Medical Association, the organization that says it represents 250,000 doctors and medical students in every state and congressional district. The principal enticement, a $247 billion measure making its way to the Senate floor, aims to wipe out a scheduled 21 percent rate cut for doctors treating Medicare patients and replace it with a permanent, predictable system for future fee increases.

The AMA, firmly in favor of higher pay for doctors, began airing ads last week saying the increase would "protect seniors' access to quality care." In case lawmakers need any inducement to act, a late 2008 study by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which advises Congress, found that nearly 30 percent of Medicare patients looking for a new primary care doctor had trouble finding one.

Yet the AMA won't yet pledge support for the major health care bill that is the chief objective of the White House and congressional Democrats, despite a request that several officials say was made at a meeting last week with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Nor does it seem eager to soft-pedal another of its own top priorities, legislation to restrict medical malpractice payments.

"We continue to press for significant medical liability reform because we know that is a very important contributor to unnecessary health care costs," Dr. J. James Rohack, president of the AMA, said in an interview in which he decli! ned repe atedly to say whether the organization had been asked to back off.

Higher payments to doctors and curbs on medical malpractice awards "in my mind are separate issues. I can't speak for how other people are putting this whole thing together," he added.

Evidently not in the minds of Democrats. Several officials say that request, too, was conveyed to the AMA and other doctor groups in last week's session with Reid. Not coincidentally, any limitations in medical malpractice awards are anathema to trial lawyers, whom Democrats count as among their most reliable and generous campaign supporters.

The dance is one of many in the long-running health care debate, the issue that has consumed Congress, the administration and a vast constellation of outside groups for months.

Take the Senate Finance Committee, which last week approved a middle-of-the-road measure that may eventually prove a template for a compromise on an issue that has defied solution for decades. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine drew headlines when she became the first Republican to support White House-backed health care legislation.

But according to some of the bill's supporters, a vote that occurred with little fanfare several evenings earlier was crucial to the legislation's survival.

It pitted the drug makers and the White House on one side and most of the committee's Democrats on the other.

At issue was a plan by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., to sweeten drug benefits for certain Medicare beneficiaries - normally something all lawmakers can favor. In this case, Nelson proposed raising fees on drug companies by $106 billion over a decade to cover the costs. "Did PhRMA come to the table in the agreement with the White House with enough? A number of us feel that is not the case," he said of the industry.

But his approach happened to run afoul of a deal! the ind ustry made months ago with the White House and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the committee's chairman. Drug makers would cover $80 billion of the cost of the legislation over a decade, and the White House and Baucus would help shield them from attempts by other lawmakers to impose additional fees or taxes.

Left undisclosed for weeks was a critical codicil - that the industry would bankroll an expensive advertising campaign to promote the bill's passage, at a cost of $100 million or more.

Passage of Nelson's proposal "may well undermine our ability to pass comprehensive health care reform in this Congress and I think that would be a great tragedy," Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said shortly before the vote.

Baucus, too, spoke against Nelson's recommendation, although he added, "we have to find some other time and some other way to fill the doughnut hole," a reference to a gap in coverage under the Medicare prescription drug program.

Of Nelson, Baucus said, "I frankly wish the senator had decided not to push" for a vote.

Not only Baucus, but also the White House had urged Nelson to drop his amendment, according to Senate sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. On the vote, the chairman, Carper and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., joined all committee Republicans in opposing the plan, and it failed on a vote of 13-10.

The drug deal was secure, and so, too, the bill.

Special interest politics was also at play for the nation's hospitals. They, too, have a side deal with the White House and Baucus, and they also received a measure of protection in the bill that cleared the committee.

At the last minute, the chairman decided to shield them from any future cuts to be recommended by an independent commission charged with recommending savings in Medicare.

The insurance industry?

Reid made an unusual appearance at a Senate committee hearing recently to support repeal of 60-year-old antitrust laws that benefit insurance companies.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - David Espo is chief congressional correspondent for The Associated Press.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Health care legislation taking shape in the House carries a price tag of at least $1 trillion over a decade, significantly higher than the target President Barack Obama has set, congressional officials said Friday as they struggled to finish work on the measure for a vote early next month.

Democrats have touted an unreleased Congressional Budget Office estimate of $871 billion in recent days, a total that numerous officials acknowledge understates the bill's true cost by $150 billion or more. That figure excludes several items designed to improve benefits for Medicare and Medicaid recipients and providers, as well as public health programs and more, they added.

The officials who disclosed the details did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Some moderate Democrats have expressed reluctance to support a bill as high as $1 trillion. Last month, Obama said in a nationally televised address before a joint session of Congress that he preferred a package with a price tag of around $900 billion.

Obama also said he would not sign a bill that raised deficits, and the CBO estimates the emerging House bill meets that objective. Officials said the measure would reduce deficits by at least $50 billion over 10 years and perhaps as much as $120 billion.

Democrats also said the bill would slow the rate of growth of the giant Medicare program from 6.6 percent annually to 5.3 percent.

"The bill will be paid for over 10 years. It will reduce costs but also will not add a dime to the deficit" in future years, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a news conference.

St ill, Obama's speech provoked enough concern among House Democrats that senior presidential aides were called to a meeting in the Capitol to explain precisely what the president had in mind when he set the $900 billion target.

The figure of $871 billion "is a coverage number. I think the White House has made that very clear. It is a number about coverage," Pelosi said recently when asked about the size of the measure.

Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for the White House, said, "The speaker is working on a plan that meets with the president's price tag of around $900 billion for health insurance reform and will not add a dime to the deficit."

House Democrats took steps to fulfill another of Obama's goals during the day, announcing their legislation would completely close a gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage within a decade, five years faster than originally contemplated.

In addition, Pelosi said, "as of Jan. 1, 2010, our legislation will give a 50 percent discount for brand-name drugs to recipients in the donut hole and it will reduce the size of the donut hole by $500."

After months of delay, Democrats in the House and Senate are aiming for votes next month on legislation to fulfill Obama's goal of expanding coverage to millions who lack it, banning insurance industry practices such as denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and slowing the growth in health care spending nationally. The House bill will also lift the insurance industry's exemption from federal anti-trust laws, a provision under consideration in Senate negotiations as well.

With time growing short, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are struggling independently with the most controversial of all issues involved with health care, proposals for a government-run insurance option to compete with private industry.

In the House, Democrats have tent! atively concluded they cannot win passage of the provisions favored by most liberals, one calling for a nationwide government-run plan with payments to doctors and hospitals linked to rates paid by Medicare. It was unclear what fall-back plan was under consideration, but the internal disagreement cast doubt on plans to publicly unveil legislation early next week.

Across the Capitol, Reid, D-Nev., assessed support for a nationwide government-run insurance option that would allow states to opt out of the system. While the plan evidently enjoys a clear majority, it is uncertain whether it can command the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster.

Democrats hold 60 votes in the Senate, but one, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has spoken out strongly against a so-called public option. A few other members of the rank and file have been non-committal.

One, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., met with Reid during the day and later issued a statement saying she was encouraged that a compromise might be possible. She also added pointedly that she had told Reid about "the unique challenges Louisiana is facing in terms of Medicaid and the special concerns I have about teaching hospitals," a possible signal that easing home-state concerns could influence her vote on the larger, national question of a government-run insurance option.

Also opposed is Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican this year who has voted for a Democratic-drafted health care bill in committee. As an alternative, she favors allowing the government to step in only if there is insufficient competition in the private insurance industry.

Nor was it clear whether Democrats would be able to enlist additional Republicans. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, frequently mentioned by Democrats as a potential convert, said in an interview, "We can't afford the health care system that we have right now. And if we can't afford th! e one we have right now, how are we going to afford another one that's going to cost more money."

For Reid, the question of a government-run option is one of a many thorny issues to be settled before he can bring health care legislation to the Senate floor. He and senior committee chairmen have been meeting with top White House aides in recent days to produce a bill, and hopes of largely wrapping up the work by the end of the week went unfulfilled.

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Eds: Associated Press writers Chuck Babington, Laurie Kellman and Erica Werner contributed to this story.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Were the pilots distracted? Catching up on their sleep? Federal lath struggled to determine what the aggregation associates of a Northwest Airlines jetliner were accomplishing at 37,000 feet as they sped 150 afar accomplished their Minneapolis destination and military jets readied to hunt them. Unfortunately, the cockpit articulation recorder may not acquaint the tale.

A report appear backward Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were atoning afterwards Wednesday night's amazing odyssey. They said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy. But aviation assurance experts and added pilots were frankly skeptical they could accept become so consumed with shop talk that they forgot to acreage an airplane carrying 144 passengers.

The most acceptable possibility, they said, is that the pilots artlessly fell asleep about along their avenue from San Diego.

"It certainly is a believable explanation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.

One of the two pilots, aboriginal administrator Richard I. Cole, said that wasn't the case.

"I can assure you none of us was asleep," Cole told ABC News. He declined to animadversion added except to say, "I am not accomplishing actual good."

New recorders retain as much as two hours of cockpit chat and added noise, but the earlier archetypal aboard Northwest's Flight 188 includes aloof the aftermost 30 account - alone the actual end of Wednesday night's flight afterwards the pilots realized their error over Wisconsin and were heading back to Minneapolis.

They had aureate through the night with no ackn! owledgme nt as air cartage controllers in two states and pilots of added planes over a advanced swath of the mid-continent approved to get their attention by radio, abstracts message and cell phone. On the ground, anxious officials alerted National Guard jets to go afterwards the airliner from two locations, though none of the military planes got off the runway.

With worries about terrorists still high, alike afterwards acquaintance was re-established, air cartage controllers asked the aggregation to prove who they were by executing turns.

"Controllers accept a acute sense of acuity back we're not able to talk to an aircraft. That's the absoluteness post-9/11," said Doug Church, a agent for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

A report appear by airport badge Friday identified Cole and the flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney. The report said the men were "cooperative, atoning and appreciative" and volunteered to booty preliminary breath tests that were zero for booze use. The report additionally said the lead flight attendant told badge she was unaware of any incident during the flight.

The pilots, both briefly suspended, are to be interviewed by NTSB lath next week. The airline, acquired aftermost year by Delta Air Lines, is additionally investigating. Messages larboard at both men's homes were not immediately returned.

The FAA said Friday letters had been sent allegorical the pilots they are actuality investigated by the agency and it is accessible their pilot's licenses could be suspended or revoked.

Investigators don't apperceive whether the pilots may accept collapsed asleep, but National Transportation Safety Board agent Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit aberration will be looked into. The plane's flight recorders were brought to the board's Washington headquarters.

Voss, the Flight Safety Foundati! on presi dent, said a special concern was that the many assurance checks built into the aviation arrangement to prevent incidents like this one - or to correct them bound - apparently were abortive until the actual end. Not alone couldn't air cartage controllers and added pilots accession the Northwest pilots for an hour, but the airline's dispatcher should accept been trying to reach them as well. The three flight associates onboard should accept questioned why there were no affairs for landing actuality made. Brightly lit cockpit displays should accept warned the pilots it was time to land. Despite cloudy conditions, the lights of Minneapolis should accept clued them in that they'd reached their destination.

"It's apparently article you would say never would happen if this hadn't aloof happened," Voss said.

The pilots were finally alerted to their situation back a flight attendant alleged on an intercom from the cabin. Two pilots flying in the vicinity were additionally finally able to accession the Northwest pilots application a Denver cartage control radio abundance instead of the local Minneapolis frequency.

On the ground, badge and FBI agents prepared for the worst.

"When the aircraft taxied to the aboideau I was able to see the two white males in the seats of the flight crew, both were cutting uniforms consistent with Delta flight crew," said a badge report, active by an Officer Starch. "When the aircraft had stopped, the male built-in in the pilot seat turned, looked at me and gave me two thumbs up and shook his arch advertence all was OK."

Air cartage controllers in Denver had been in acquaintance with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA backer Laura Brown said. But as the alike got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "the Denver center approved to acquaintance the flight but couldn't get anyone."

Denver controllers notified their counterparts ! in Minne apolis, who additionally approved to reach the aggregation after success, Brown said.

Officials suspect Flight 188's radio might still accept been tuned to a abundance used by Denver controllers alike though the alike had aureate above their reach, said Church, the agent for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. Controllers worked throughout the incident with the pilots of added planes, asking them to try to accession Flight 188 application the Denver frequency, he said

Passenger Lonnie Heidtke said he didn't notice annihilation abnormal before the landing except that the alike was late.

The flight associates "did say there was a adjournment and we'd accept to orbit or article to that aftereffect before we got back. They really didn't say we overflew Minneapolis. ... They implied it was aloof a business-as-usual delay," said Heidtke, a consultant with a supercomputer consulting aggregation based in Bloomington, Minn.

Once on the ground, the alike was met by badge and FBI agents. Passengers retrieving their baggage from aerial bins were asked by flight associates sit down, Heidtke said. An airport badge administrator and a couple added people came on lath and stood at the cockpit door, talking to the pilots, he said.

"I did jokingly alarm my wife and say, 'This is the aboriginal time I've seen the badge meet the plane. Maybe they're going to arrest the pilots for actuality so late.' Maybe I was right," Heidtke said.

Delta said Friday it plans to accord flight vouchers worth a few hundred dollars to each of the passengers.

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AP Airlines Writer Joshua Freed and AP Writers Steve Karnowski and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis, Dave Koenig in Dallas and Harry Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

FlightAw! are.com tracking of Northwest Flight 188: http://bit.ly/2QV9hX

National Transportation Safety Board http://www.ntsb.gov

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's relief at the agreement that could quiet the political crisis over Afghanistan's spoiled election masks his predicament as he weighs an expansion of the unpopular Afghanistan war.

The administration says its ambitious plans for Afghanistan rely on a "credible partner" in Kabul. But there is no guarantee that the hastily arranged voting will confer the legitimacy the fraudulent Aug. 20 election lacked.

No matter who wins the November election runoff that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai agreed to during pressured consultations with American leaders, the United States is wedded to a shaky government in which corruption has become second nature.

"This has been a very difficult time in Afghanistan to not only carry out an election under difficult circumstances, where there were a whole host of security issues that had to be resolved, but also postelection a lot of uncertainty," Obama said Tuesday.

Obama pointed to the Nov. 7 runoff as "a path forward in order to complete this election process." He said nothing about his deliberations over what could be a huge surge of U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan, a calculation badly thrown off by the botched August voting.

For the U.S., a runoff emerged as perhaps the least bad option to restore momentum and the important perception that Afghans themselves are invested in their government and its success. Karzai's chief political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, agreed Wednesday to participate in the run-off.

"You have to learn from mistakes, and everybody needs to do that here," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who stood with Karzai for an awkward announcement of the run! off plan . He said Afghan officials and international election shepherds must work fast to get standards and plans that all agree on.

Another election risks the same fraud that derailed the Aug. 20 vote, and the same risk of inciting violence and increasing ethnic divisions.

If there are any more delays, the vote could also could be hampered by winter snows that block off much of the north of the country starting mid-November.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a warning to Afghan election officials.

"We will advise the Independent Election Commission not to re-recruit those officials who might have been involved in fraudulent electoral processes," Ban said. "And we will ensure to make all administrative and technical (measures) to ensure that this election will be carried out in a most fair and transparent manner."

Having pushed for a do-over, U.S. officials have even less ability to scold the winner. That winner is likely to be incumbent Karzai, who conceded Tuesday, under heavy international pressure, that a runoff was "legitimate, legal and according to the constitution of Afghanistan."

The Afghan leader did not express any regret over fraud that led U.N.-backed auditors to strip him of nearly a third of his votes.

"This is not the right time to discuss investigations, this is the time to move forward toward stability and national unity," Karzai said at a joint appearance with U.S. and U.N. go-betweens.

The Obama administration has kept an obvious distance from Karzai, a silver-tongued charmer whom the Bush administration had considered a successful protege despite mounting claims of incompetence and corruption.

Kerry leaned hard on Karzai over several days to concede that he did not win in the first round. The two men took a long, dramatic walk Tuesday before an uncharact! eristica lly grim Karzai came to the microphones.

Kerry spoke to The Associated Press en route home from Kabul on Tuesday and said Karzai had worried aloud about the direction of his relationship with the United States.

"He came to the conclusion that Afghanistan's interests and his interests coincided in making sure there was a legitimately accepted government and that he needed to take this step in order to restore that," Kerry said.

Although Karzai was favored to win all along, Obama's advisers thought they could forge a workable partnership that would be the building block for a new war strategy emphasizing the security and welfare of ordinary Afghans.

The strategy, which military officials quickly assumed would mean an infusion of thousands of additional U.S. troops and a larger expansion of Afghanistan's own armed forces, frayed when the expensive, carefully monitored election went bad.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sounded pessimistic when asked about the runoff at a Tokyo news conference Wednesday.

"I think we need to be realistic that the issues of corruption and governance that we are trying to work with the Afghan government on are not going to be solved simply on the outcome of the presidential election," he said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama has not decided whether to move ahead with a revamped strategy, and the prospect of more troops, before results of the runoff are known. Gibbs told reporters he still expects that decision within weeks.

The Taliban will surely try to disrupt the voting again, and turnout is expected to be low in areas where voters were intimidated.

"Another election where there's no credible government to operate with continues to undermine our reason for being there," said Richard "Ozzie" Nelson, a former White House countert! errorism expert now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It would push us further down the slippery slope of what to do next."

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Associated Press writer Andrew Miga contributed to this report.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Anne Gearan has covered U.S. national security issues for The Associated Press since 2004.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans seem to be cooling toward global warming.

Just 57 percent think there is solid evidence the world is getting warmer, down 20 points in just three years, a new poll says. And the share of people who believe pollution caused by humans is causing temperatures to rise has also taken a dip, even as the U.S. and world forums gear up for possible action against climate change.

In a poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, released Thursday, the number of people saying there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has gotten warmer over the past few decades is down from 71 percent in April of last year and from 77 percent when Pew started asking the question in 2006. The number of people who see the situation as a serious problem also has declined.

The steepest drop has occurred during the past year, as Congress and the Obama administration have taken steps to control heat-trapping emissions for the first time and international negotiations for a new treaty to slow global warming have been under way. At the same time, there has been mounting scientific evidence of climate change - from melting ice caps to the world's oceans hitting the highest monthly recorded temperatures this summer.

The poll was released a day after 18 scientific organizations wrote Congress to reaffirm the consensus behind global warming. A federal government report Thursday found that global warming is upsetting the Arctic's thermostat.

Only about a third, or 36 percent of the respondents, feel that human activities - such as pollution from power plants, factories and automobiles - are behind a temperature increase. That's down from! 47 perc ent from 2006 through last year's poll.

"The priority that people give to pollution and environmental concerns and a whole host of other issues is down because of the economy and because of the focus on other things," suggested Andrew Kohut, the director of the research center, which conducted the poll from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4. "When the focus is on other things, people forget and see these issues as less grave."

Andrew Weaver, a professor of climate analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said politics could be drowning out scientific awareness.

"It's a combination of poor communication by scientists, a lousy summer in the Eastern United States, people mixing up weather and climate and a full-court press by public relations firms and lobby groups trying to instill a sense of uncertainty and confusion in the public," he said.

Political breakdowns in the survey underscore how tough it could be to enact a law limiting pollution emissions blamed for warming. While three-quarters of Democrats believe the evidence of a warming planet is solid, and nearly half believe the problem is serious, far fewer conservative and moderate Democrats see the problem as grave. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say there is no solid evidence of global warming, up from 31 percent in early 2007.

Though there are exceptions, the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.

Jane Lubchenco, head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a business group meeting at the White House Thursday: "The science is pretty clear that the climate challenge before us is very real. We're already seeing impacts of climate change in our own backyards."

Despite misgivings about th! e scienc e, half the respondents still say they support limits on greenhouse gases, even if they could lead to higher energy prices. And a majority - 56 percent - feel the United States should join other countries in setting standards to address global climate change.

But many of the supporters of reducing pollution have heard little to nothing about cap-and-trade, the main mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases favored by the White House and central to legislation passed by the House and a bill the Senate will take up next week.

Under cap-and-trade, a price is put on each ton of pollution, and businesses can buy and sell permits to meet emissions limits.

"Perhaps the most interesting finding in this poll ... is that the more Americans learn about cap-and-trade, the more they oppose cap-and-trade," said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who opposes the Senate bill and has questioned global warming science.

Regional as well as political differences were detected in the polling.

People living in the Midwest and mountainous areas of the West are far less likely to view global warming as a serious problem and to support limits on greenhouse gases than those in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Both the House and Senate bills have been drafted by Democratic lawmakers from Massachusetts and California.

One of those lawmakers, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, told reporters Thursday that she was happy with the results, given the interests and industry groups fighting the bill.

"Today, to get 57 percent saying that the climate is warming is good, because today everybody is grumpy about everything," Boxer said. "Science will win the day in America. Science always wins the day."

Earlier polls, from different organizations, have not detected a growing skepticism about the science behind global warming.

Since 1997, the percentage of Americans that believe the Earth is heating up has remained constant - at around 80 percent - in polling done by Jon Krosnick of Stanford University. Krosnick, who has been conducting surveys on attitudes about global warming since 1993, was surprised by the Pew results.

He described the decline in the Pew results as "implausible," saying there is nothing that could have caused it.

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Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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