Clinton Advisers Criticize Obama Mailer

(AP) Advisers to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton Friday complained vehemently about a Barack Obama campaign mailer that criticizes Clinton's health plan, with one adviser likening the mailer to "Nazis marching through Skokie, Illinois."

Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson disavowed the analogy leveled by Len Nichols, a health policy expert at the New America Foundation who has consulted with Clinton and other candidates on their proposals.

But the remark still reflected the emotional dispute over how best to achieve universal health care, a key concern of many Democratic primary voters.

The Obama mailer, which the Clinton campaign traced to mailboxes in North Dakota and Alaska, shows a young couple sitting at a table, appearing to puzzle over a stack of bills.

"Hillary's plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it," the headline reads.

On a conference call with reporters, Clinton advisers complained the image and the message closely resembled the $100 million "Harry and Louise" TV ad campaign waged by the insurance industry in 1994 to kill the former first lady's effort to reshape the health care system. In those ads, a middle class couple sat at a table worrying about the Clinton plan's complexities and wondering if they might lose the right to choose their own doctors.

Clinton campaign policy director Neera Tanden said the mailer falsely suggests that the New York senator's plan wouldn't bring down costs. She noted that Clinton would offer tax subsidies to help pay for insurance and would seek other cost controls before enforcing a mandate to buy coverage.

Obama, Tanden said, "betrays the cause of universal health care. For a potential Democratic nominee to be attacking universal care is quite stunning."

Nichols of the New America Foundation went farther.

"I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing," Nichols, a supporter of the so-called universal mandate said. "It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois."

In late 1970s, the American Nazi party won a court battle over the right to march through the predominantly Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie, home to many Holocaust survivors. Despite their victory, the white supremacists decided to hold their demonstration in a Chicago park instead.

While both Clinton and Obama have outlined detailed plans to make health care more affordable and accessible, Clinton would require everyone to carry insurance while Obama would make enrollment voluntary. The two have clashed repeatedly over the matter, with Obama saying people cannot be required to buy insurance if they can't afford it, and Clinton saying universal enrollment is the only way to bring down insurance costs.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded by pointing to comments by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, a longtime champion of universal health care who endorsed Obama earlier this week.

"It's the passion of my life, universal comprehensive health care, and I wouldn't support Barack Obama unless I was absolutely convinced that he was for universal comprehensive health care as well," Kennedy said in a television interview. "I've tried for 38 years to get the universal comprehensive health care. I've supported 12 different proposals to try to get there. Elect Barack Obama and we will get there."

Ohio Supreme Court: Traffic cameras are legal

The streetside traffic-enforcement cameras in Akron, Cleveland and several other Ohio towns aren't going away any time soon.
The Ohio Supreme Court refused to snap a lens cap on the cameras Thursday, ruling unanimously that the cities that use the cameras as the basis for ticketing motorists aren't overstepping their municipal authority.


A "fundamental misunderstanding"

The camera-challenging plaintiffs took a clever tack, implying they should actually be treated more harshly for breaking the law. Moving violations are criminal offenses, their lawsuit claimed, with traffic-court hearings, points assessed against one's license and even license revocation as possible consequences. But snapshot-caught violations get treated more like parking tickets -- civil cases, with no penalty beyond a fine.





That, the suit contended, "decriminalizes" speeding and red-light running, which clashes with state laws, so municipalities overstepped their authority. Nonsense, replied the court. Akron's speeding and red-light laws remain intact, and police can still enforce them. "The Akron ordinance complements, rather than conflicts with, state law," wrote Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger.

Due next: Due process

"This case isn't over," declared Warner Mendenhall, an Akron attorney who filed the challenge on his defendant wife's behalf. Opponents are still fighting the cameras on the grounds that the hearings set up for motorists to challenge their citations trounce the U.S. Constitution's due-process protections. U.S. District Judge David Dowd will decide that in a process that could take months to resolve.


Studies: Camera enforcement works

Studies consistently show that bad driving abates near camera surveillance. One example in a study released Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: Montgomery County, Md., saw a 70-percent plunge in the proportion of vehicles speeding more than 10 mph faster than the posted speed limits in areas where cameras were installed. The mere specter of cameras worked, the Maryland study found: Where camera warnings were posted, speeding dropped by 39 percent even when the cameras weren't in place. Another example: A yearlong test of red-light cameras in two Virginia cities showed red-light running was slashed by 69 percent after camera deployment, according to an Old Dominion University study published a year ago. The risk of a red-light violation at the target intersections was 3.59 times higher within a year after the cameras were yanked in July 2005, that study found.


Don't shake the moneymaker

Cleveland and other cities often deny they use the cameras as revenue machines, but it's certainly in their fiscal best interest that the programs survive challenges. Cleveland, where cameras now generate nearly 120,000 citations a year, collected more than $14 million in fines from its program in the last two years, including $8.28 million in 2007. But, said Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi, the cameras aren't about revenue. "This program is designed to make our neighborhoods safer," he insisted Thursday. "Nobody in this town should feel the right to break the law with impunity."

Banks cream £1,200 profit from every £20 PPI policy sold with loans

UK banks and insurance companies are making profits of up to 982 per cent on payment protection insurance(PPI) policies sold with loans, according to a report by The Competition Commission.

The findings of the latest investigation, presented as a Working Paper, found that lenders are making in excess of £2.6 billion a year from the controversial PPI scheme, with the average revenue from a single premium personal loan PPI policy for banks coming in at £1,200.

Along with the two main consumer regulators, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the Competition Commission is carrying out investigations into high-pressure selling tactics that have resulted in many polices being inappropriately and unfairly sold to customers.

With common complaints such as back pain and mental health failing to secure a payout, it has since been revealed that cash earned from PPI that has helped the personal loan remain profitable for banks and other providers. In its report, the Competition Commission stated that: "The personal loans business has suffered from declining profits in recent years to the point where in 2006 it appears to have been loss making before taking into account income from PPI."

Further research by the Post Office has also found that PPI linked to a loan can cost five times more than standalone PPI, saving on average £705 over the period of the loan. Post Office Head of Protection Products, Duncan Caesar-Gordon, has called for a "more transparent" and "fairer marketplace."

The Post Office found average monthly PPI premiums stood at £28.05 – or £14.88 for every £100 of cover. "The Post Office has been calling for an open market for PPI sales since 2006, where providers are honest with customers that other, cheaper, standalone products are available, and has contributed to the Competition Commission's investigation to this effect," said Mr. Caesar-Gordon.

"Many customers continue to have little understanding of PPI and some do not even realise they have this insurance in force. Others, who have been at the hands of aggressive sales tactics, can feel they have no choice but to take the expensive policy tied to a loan or credit card if they want their application to be accepted," he added.

Tim Moss, Head of Loans at moneysupermarket.com, has also critisised the current trend of mis-selling PPI: "This study may well bring a return to old-fashioned banking where the headline rate told you everything about a loan. Lenders may have to go back to the days where they made their money out of the interest rate they charged, rather than the additional products they sell."

However he warned that a change in the regulations could be reflected in a new pricing structure: "There will be more transparent pricing, but market-leading loans could well go from six or seven per cent up to eight or nine per cent, if PPI is clamped down on. Rates would have to go up to replace lost profits."