FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2013, file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall about the federal health care law. Obama says he's sorry Americans are losing health insurance plans he repeatedly said they could keep under his signature health care law. But the president stopped short of apologizing for making those promises in the first place. "I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he said in an interview Thursday, Nov. 7 with NBC News. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2013, file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall about the federal health care law. Obama says he's sorry Americans are losing health insurance plans he repeatedly said they could keep under his signature health care law. But the president stopped short of apologizing for making those promises in the first place. "I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he said in an interview Thursday, Nov. 7 with NBC News. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he's sorry Americans are losing health insurance plans he repeatedly said they could keep under his signature health care law. But the president stopped short of apologizing for making those promises in the first place.
"I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he said in an interview Thursday with NBC News.
He added: "We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them, and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this."
The president's apology comes as the White House tries to combat a cascade of troubles surrounding the rollout of the health care law often referred to as "Obamacare." The healthcare.gov website that was supposed to be an easy portal for Americans to purchase insurance has been riddled by technical issues. And with at least 3.5 million Americans receiving cancellation notices from their insurance companies, there's new scrutiny aimed at the way the president tried to sell the law to the public in the first place.
Much of the focus is on the president's promise that Americans who liked their insurance coverage would be able to keep it. He repeated the line often, both as the bill was debated in Congress and after it was signed into law.
But the measure itself made that promise almost impossible to keep. It mandated that insurance coverage must meet certain standards and that policies that fell short could no longer be sold except through a grandfathering process, meaning some policies were always expected to disappear.
The White House says under those guidelines, fewer than 5 percent of Americans will have to change their coverage. But in a nation of more than 300 million people, 5 percent is about 15 million people.
Officials argue that those people being forced to change plans will end up with better coverage and that subsidies offered by the government will help offset any increased costs.
"We weren't as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place," Obama told NBC. "And I want to do everything we can to make sure that people are finding themselves in a good position, a better position than they were before this law happened."
The president's critics have accused him of misleading the public about changes that were coming under the law, which remains unpopular with many Americans and a target for congressional Republicans.
Obama dismissed that criticism, saying "I meant what I said" and insisting that his administration was operating in "good faith." He acknowledged that the administration "didn't do a good enough job in terms of how we crafted the law" but did not specify what changes might be made.
Sign-ups for the new health care marketplaces opened Oct. 1. People have six months to enroll before facing a penalty.
Some lawmakers — including Democrats — have called on the White House to delay the penalty or extend the enrollment period because of the website woes that have prevented many used from signing up. Obama said he remains confident that anyone who wants to buy insurance will be able to do so.
"Keep in mind that the open enrollment period, the period during which you can buy health insurance is available all the way until March 31," he said. "And we're only five weeks into it."
Amid the clamor of "bring your own device" (BYOD), a question lurks in the background: "What happens to technical service and support?" Concerns for the tech support function encompass the extremes, from agents being overwhelmed with calls, to their becoming inhabitants of a help desk ghost town.
On the one hand, it’s easy to imagine a flood of calls as employees attempt to access wireless networks or synch their e-mail, especially in companies that permit the use of any device type. At the same time, as more people own smartphones, they are increasingly accustomed to resolving issues independently, through online forums, communities and other means of self-support.
By 2016, says Gartner analyst Jarod Greene, help desks will see a 25% to 30% drop in user-initiated call volume, as BYOD drives a companion trend of BYOS, or “bring your own support.”
Researchers suggest plan to address hypoxia in Gulf of Mexico
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
7-Nov-2013
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Contact: Debra Levey Larson dlarson@illinois.edu 217-244-2880 University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
URBANA, Ill. Despite a 12-year action plan calling for reducing the hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico, little progress has been made, and there is no evidence that nutrient loading to the Gulf has decreased during this period. University of Illinois researchers have identified some of the biophysical and social barriers to progress and propose a way forward.
"We are suggesting that a partnership of researchers work closely with farmers to develop the suite of practices that are needed to reduce nutrient losses from agricultural fields," said U of I biogeochemist Mark David who has been studying nitrate loss since 1993. "Working with farmers is essential to develop realistic practices on real-world farmswhere the constraints that influence management are presentto document the effectiveness, and to communicate the environmental and socioeconomic results regionally."
"Biophysical and Social Barriers Restrict Water Quality Improvements in the Mississippi River Basin" was published in the Nov. 5 issue of Environmental Science and Technology. The opinion piece was authored by researchers Mark B. David, Courtney G. Flint, Gregory F. McIsaac, Lowell E. Gentry, Mallory K. Dolan, and George F. Czapar.
David said that the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone that was measured in July 2013 was 5,800 square miles (nearly the size of Connecticut), the result of riverine losses of nitrate and total phosphorus from the Mississippi River Basin. The goal of the 2008 action plan is to reduce the zone to a five-year running average of 2,000 square miles by 2015 and calls for a 45 percent reduction in total nitrogen and phosphorus, but these goals have not been met.
"Much of the nitrate that leads to the hypoxic zone formation is lost from millions of acres of fields across the upper Midwest, where drainage has been accelerated by a variety of agricultural practices," David said. "Many flat agricultural fields are artificially drained with perforated plastic tubing or older clay drainage tiles to allow timely field work and enhance crop growth. There are now tens of millions of acres of tile-drained fields with large losses of nitrate, even with the recommended best management practices being followed," he said.
According to the researchers, the combination of expanded and patterned tile drainage, increased fertilizer use due to more corn production, and more frequent high-intensity precipitation events all contribute to greater losses of nutrients and therefore a large hypoxic zone. This occurs even though nutrient balances (inputs minus outputs) have generally improved across the upper Midwest.
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) promotes and provides technical information on a wide array of techniques that can be used to reduce nutrient losses, including fertilizer rate, timing and placement; cover crops; nitrification inhibiters; water table management; tile bioreactors; constructed wetlands; buffer strips; and conversion of row crops to CRP or perennial crops. David said that unfortunately, few of these methods are used on tile-drained fields because they impose substantial costs and/or risks on the producer without increasing crop production.
"For example, end-of-pipe practices such as tile bioreactors or constructed wetlands have substantial construction costs, require land to be taken out of production, and provide no production benefit to the producer," David said.
The researchers noted that important constraints are in the socioeconomic realm and relate to factors influencing adoption of farm conservation practices.
"Producers view themselves as stewards who care for the land, but they need to make a living from it," said rural sociologist Courtney Flint. "Not only can they not see the loss of nutrients, they are disconnected physically from the downstream effects.
Stewardship objectives may be strong, but they can be trumped or complicated by other economic, social, and environmental drivers.
"Additionally, there is a growing sense among farmers that policy makers are too far removed from the realities of farming," Flint added. "This leads to an ever-widening trust gap that is a major barrier to effective collaboration and policy development for water-quality improvement in the Mississippi River Basin and beyond."
The researchers believe that having farmers actively participate with researchers to develop realistic suites of practices could find widespread regional acceptance, but they realize that real-world, on-farm longitudinal studies of nutrient loss reduction practices will require considerable funding for cost-sharing practice development and implementation.
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Researchers suggest plan to address hypoxia in Gulf of Mexico
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
7-Nov-2013
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Contact: Debra Levey Larson dlarson@illinois.edu 217-244-2880 University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
URBANA, Ill. Despite a 12-year action plan calling for reducing the hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico, little progress has been made, and there is no evidence that nutrient loading to the Gulf has decreased during this period. University of Illinois researchers have identified some of the biophysical and social barriers to progress and propose a way forward.
"We are suggesting that a partnership of researchers work closely with farmers to develop the suite of practices that are needed to reduce nutrient losses from agricultural fields," said U of I biogeochemist Mark David who has been studying nitrate loss since 1993. "Working with farmers is essential to develop realistic practices on real-world farmswhere the constraints that influence management are presentto document the effectiveness, and to communicate the environmental and socioeconomic results regionally."
"Biophysical and Social Barriers Restrict Water Quality Improvements in the Mississippi River Basin" was published in the Nov. 5 issue of Environmental Science and Technology. The opinion piece was authored by researchers Mark B. David, Courtney G. Flint, Gregory F. McIsaac, Lowell E. Gentry, Mallory K. Dolan, and George F. Czapar.
David said that the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone that was measured in July 2013 was 5,800 square miles (nearly the size of Connecticut), the result of riverine losses of nitrate and total phosphorus from the Mississippi River Basin. The goal of the 2008 action plan is to reduce the zone to a five-year running average of 2,000 square miles by 2015 and calls for a 45 percent reduction in total nitrogen and phosphorus, but these goals have not been met.
"Much of the nitrate that leads to the hypoxic zone formation is lost from millions of acres of fields across the upper Midwest, where drainage has been accelerated by a variety of agricultural practices," David said. "Many flat agricultural fields are artificially drained with perforated plastic tubing or older clay drainage tiles to allow timely field work and enhance crop growth. There are now tens of millions of acres of tile-drained fields with large losses of nitrate, even with the recommended best management practices being followed," he said.
According to the researchers, the combination of expanded and patterned tile drainage, increased fertilizer use due to more corn production, and more frequent high-intensity precipitation events all contribute to greater losses of nutrients and therefore a large hypoxic zone. This occurs even though nutrient balances (inputs minus outputs) have generally improved across the upper Midwest.
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) promotes and provides technical information on a wide array of techniques that can be used to reduce nutrient losses, including fertilizer rate, timing and placement; cover crops; nitrification inhibiters; water table management; tile bioreactors; constructed wetlands; buffer strips; and conversion of row crops to CRP or perennial crops. David said that unfortunately, few of these methods are used on tile-drained fields because they impose substantial costs and/or risks on the producer without increasing crop production.
"For example, end-of-pipe practices such as tile bioreactors or constructed wetlands have substantial construction costs, require land to be taken out of production, and provide no production benefit to the producer," David said.
The researchers noted that important constraints are in the socioeconomic realm and relate to factors influencing adoption of farm conservation practices.
"Producers view themselves as stewards who care for the land, but they need to make a living from it," said rural sociologist Courtney Flint. "Not only can they not see the loss of nutrients, they are disconnected physically from the downstream effects.
Stewardship objectives may be strong, but they can be trumped or complicated by other economic, social, and environmental drivers.
"Additionally, there is a growing sense among farmers that policy makers are too far removed from the realities of farming," Flint added. "This leads to an ever-widening trust gap that is a major barrier to effective collaboration and policy development for water-quality improvement in the Mississippi River Basin and beyond."
The researchers believe that having farmers actively participate with researchers to develop realistic suites of practices could find widespread regional acceptance, but they realize that real-world, on-farm longitudinal studies of nutrient loss reduction practices will require considerable funding for cost-sharing practice development and implementation.
###
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Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Amid the clamor of "bring your own device" (BYOD), a question lurks in the background: "What happens to technical service and support?" Concerns for the tech support function encompass the extremes, from agents being overwhelmed with calls, to their becoming inhabitants of a help desk ghost town.
On the one hand, it’s easy to imagine a flood of calls as employees attempt to access wireless networks or synch their e-mail, especially in companies that permit the use of any device type. At the same time, as more people own smartphones, they are increasingly accustomed to resolving issues independently, through online forums, communities and other means of self-support.
By 2016, says Gartner analyst Jarod Greene, help desks will see a 25% to 30% drop in user-initiated call volume, as BYOD drives a companion trend of BYOS, or “bring your own support.”
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Adrian Peterson ran for 75 yards and two scores and the Minnesota Vikings stopped the Washington Redskins at the 4 in the final seconds to hold on for a 34-27 victory Thursday night.
Christian Ponder went 17 for 21 for 174 yards with two touchdowns and an interception before leaving late in the third quarter with an injured left shoulder. John Carlson had seven catches for 98 yards and a touchdown for the Vikings (2-7).
Robert Griffin III was 24 for 37 for 281 yards and three touchdowns for the Redskins (3-6), who led 27-14 early in the third quarter. But Santana Moss couldn't get his second foot in bounds on a pass in the corner of the end zone on fourth down, giving Minnesota the victory.
Andrew Parker of MI5, John Sawers of MI6, and Iain Lobban of GCHQ testifying before the Intelligence and Security Committee, Nov. 7, 2013.
Video still by UK Parliament via Reuters
In the months since Edward Snowden exposed mass surveillance by the National Security Agency, the U.S. Congress has grilled the agency, its overseers, and its intelligence-community partners in several open hearings. The British Parliament, however, has conducted no such interrogations, despite Snowden’s revelations of similar surveillance by the United Kingdom. Today, the chiefs of Britain’s top three intelligence agencies—MI5, MI6, and GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), testified together publicly for the first time before the parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. The session was a joke.
Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right. Follow him on Twitter.
I expected better. The Brits, after all, are the people who gave us Question Time, a daily ritual in which members of Parliament interrogate government ministers. Our public-affairs TV network, C-SPAN, treats this as a model of transparency, accountability, and lively debate. But in security matters, the U.K. has a long way to go. When the spy chiefs were asked in today’s committee session about domestic surveillance, they gave the same pat answers U.S. intelligence officials tried to peddle in early post-Snowden congressional hearings. They alluded to “safeguards,” “rigorous oversight,” and “internal rules.” The committee’s members failed to press for evidence or clarification.
The committee’s chairman, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, asked the spymasters why they had to monitor the entire public in order to catch evildoers. Sir Iain Lobban, the director of GCHQ, assured Rifkind that the government’s data harvesters don’t exceed what’s necessary and proper, since “there are very specific legal thresholds,” and “I don’t employ the type of people who would” spy on innocent civilians. “My people are motivated by saving lives,” Lobban sniffed.
In a congressional hearing, this is the kind of assertion that prompts somebody on the panel to ask for details. What legal thresholds? What internal rules? Instead, Rifkind thanked Lobban: “You’ve given a very full response.”
Ten minutes later, Rifkind asked Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, for “specific examples” of damage done to British intelligence by the disclosure of surveillance methods. Parker offered to give the committee examples in closed session, but he assured Rifkind that thanks to GCHQ’s data collection, “there are real instances” of the government “finding terrorist plots that we would not otherwise find that we’re then able to thwart, which leads to lives being saved.” Again, this is the kind of assertion that often unravels under scrutiny in congressional hearings. But in the British forum, it went unchallenged.
Lobban claimed to have solid evidence. “What we have seen, over the last five months, is near daily discussion among some of our targets” showing damage from recent surveillance disclosures, he told the committee.
We’ve seen terrorist groups in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere in South Asia discussing the revelations in specific terms, in terms of the communications packages that they use, the communications packages that they wish to move to. … We have actually seen chat around specific terrorist groups, including close to home, discussing how to avoid what they now perceive to be vulnerable communications methods, or to how to select communications which they now perceive not to be exploitable.
At this point in an American hearing, you’d expect some congressman to ask the witness how we have such good intel on this “chat” if the bad guys have learned how to evade our surveillance. But nobody on the British panel raised that question.
Why was the interrogation so lame? I can imagine several reasons. The British spy agencies are only supporting actors in the surveillance story. The NSA is the main target, so Congress feels pressure to do something. Libertarianism and distrust of government are also less prevalent in the United Kingdom. One member of the British committee told the spy chiefs that in national polls, “about 60 percent of the public either think that you’ve got the right amount of powers, or indeed, some members of the public think you need more powers.” In addition, the Brits have a stronger faith in the decency of public servants. When NSA officials tell Congress that their employees are good people, we nod but persist. We want to know what laws and mechanisms are in place to prevent abuse.
Two other things about the hearing struck me as odd. One was this comment from Parker, the MI5 boss: “There have been times over the years when successive governments have offered my service greater powers and greater measures. And we’ve said they’re disproportionate and turned away from them.”
Best known for its low-cost laptops, Acer doesn’t really inspire thoughts of premium products. But building high-end hardware could be the Taiwanese vendor’s best shot as it looks for a way to rescue its struggling business.
With consumers flocking to tablets and smartphones, Acer’s once-thriving PC business has been left in the dust. Quarterly financial losses have become routine at the company, and its PC shipments declined more sharply in the past year than at any other major vendor, according to IDC.
The grim situation forced CEO J.T. Wang to resign from his post Tuesday. Acer will also cut seven percent of its global workforce and has assembled an advisory committee to come up with a new strategy, the company announced.
Bright spots are hard to find. The Wintel model that propelled Acer for years and helped it become the second-largest PC vendor in 2009 has been falling apart amid the demand for mobile gadgets. And Windows 8 and Intel’s Ultrabook strategy have failed to resuscitate the market.
It hasn’t helped that Acer is so reliant on sales to consumers, said IDC analyst Bryan Ma. The entire PC industry has been hurt by tablets, but Dell and Hewlett-Packard have at least managed to find cover selling PCs to businesses, which are still buying them. And Lenovo has capitalized on its position in China, now the world’s largest PC market.
“Acer didn’t really have the commercial PC business to protect itself. That’s why it was hit harder,” Ma said.
Low prices, low profits
Acer—whether to its benefit or detriment—has instead gained a reputation for low-priced PCs. Even in tablets it has tried to undercut rivals—its Iconia W4, an 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablet, starts at $329.99, while its Iconia B Android tablet goes for $129.99. The low prices have helped keep the company on consumers’ radar, but at the expense of profits.
One option for Acer is to build a brand as a higher-end PC player. It took a step in that direction last year with the Aspire S7, a Windows laptop with a slender, aluminum chassis that sells for $1200 and up. That product and its successors have had some success for the company, with sales of 2,000 to 3,000 units per month, said James Wang, an analyst with research firm Canalys.
“I think Acer has started to learn it is able to sell some expensive products,” he said.
Strategies by rivals
Selling higher-end PCs could help stop the bleeding in Acer’s finances, but with the overall PC market still shrinking, it’s unlikely to help it expand in any meaningful way. “You can’t really expect vendors in desktops and notebooks to find growth,” Wang said. “You win in the market by not falling in shipments.”
Acer might have to try breaking into other markets or raise its profile among business customers. Some of its rivals have taken that path, with Lenovo buying up PC makers in growth countries, and Dell and HP selling enterprise “solutions” that include services.
“If Acer continues to only sell PCs, in just a few years’ time it will be over for them,” predicted Gartner analyst Eileen He. “If you’re simply a hardware maker, it’s not enough.”
Acer’s big Taiwanese rival, Asustek, has also seen its PC sales decline. But its willingness to experiment with innovative, sometimes off-the-wall products has helped bring strong growth to its Android business, and its profits haven’t suffered like Acer’s.
HP and Dell have much broader businesses to fall back on, giving them some leeway as they try to build effective tablet and smartphone strategies. But for Acer, with its narrow focus on consumer PCs, any big change will be easier said than done, potentially requiring it to invest more in research and development, overhaul its supply chain and build new brands.
“You can’t just turn a big boat on a dime,” IDC’s Ma said. “It takes time to make that course correction. The question is how quickly can it turn its boat?”
Michael Kan, IDG News Service Beijing correspondent, IDG News Service, IDG News Service
Michael Kan covers IT, telecom and Internet in China for the IDG News Service. More by Michael Kan, IDG News Service
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