SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent William Tuohy has died at 83.

Tuohy's stepson Adam Wheeler says the veteran reporter who worked for the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek died Thursday after open heart surgery at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica.

Tuohy won his international reporting Pulitzer in 1969 for his coverage of the Vietnam War as the Times' Saigon bureau chief. He also headed up the Times' Beirut, Rome and London bureaus during his 29 years at the paper.

Tuohy began his journalism career at the San Francisco Chronicle. He was Newsweek magazine's Saigon bureau chief in 1966 when he was hired to become the Times' bureau chief there. He retired from the Times in 1995.

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Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com

The plan would let any employee pay into the program and later receive benefits for in-home assistance to the elderly and disabled. The proposal has drawn majority opposition but little attention.

A government insurance plan to provide in-home assistance to the elderly and disabled is poised to become law despite a majority of senators voting against including the proposal in the healthcare overhaul bill.

13 Attorneys General say they'll Sue Unless Lawmaker's Remove Provision for Nebraska in Senate Bill

In April 1962, when U.S. Steel and five other steel corporations unilaterally decided to jack up their prices and squelch an intricate set of compromises that the Kennedy Administration had expended a great deal of effort in negotiating, President John F. Kennedy responded with an aggressive counter attack that shocked the Washington press establishment. He turned loose his younger brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who subpoenaed the expense accounts of the top steel executives and dispatched F.B.I. agents to "interview" them. Robert Kennedy also sent the not-so-subtle message that the Justice Department and its Anti-Trust Division, along with the Internal Revenue Service, were about to make the executives' lives miserable unless they honored their original agreement with the White House and the labor unions to maintain prices.

Here's what JFK told the nation at a press conference about the steel crisis:

"In this serious hour in our Nation's history, when we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability, when we are asking reservists to leave their homes and families for months on end and servicemen to risk their lives -- and four were killed in the last two days in Vietnam -- and asking union members to hold down their wage requests at a time when restraint and sacrifice are being asked of every citizen, the American people will find it hard, as I do, to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans." [Quoted in Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 485.]

Can anyone imagine President Barack Obama saying anything like this about the economic crisis and the wars requiring sacrifice and how unconscionable the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries are behaving today against the national interest?

And what was the result of Kennedy's honest public appraisal of the situation taking on big business? Contrary to what the David Broders and the Mara Liassons and the Adam Nagourneys and all the other Beltway savants would opine today -- the public supported Kennedy's tough stand by a margin of 58 to 22 percent and the President's approval rating stood at 73 percent. Taking on big and powerful corporate executives and denouncing their greed and "contempt for the interests" of the American people turned out to be good politics! Who woulda thought?

Ah, but times were different back then and any president today has no choice but to toady up to big business in order to avoid attacks from the Republican Right. But when Kennedy took his stand against Big Steel conservative publications blasted him comparing him to Mussolini and claiming that his administration belonged in the Soviet Union. Bumper stickers blared: "Help Kennedy Stamp Out Free Enterprise!" And Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater said that Kennedy was trying to "socialize the business of the country." Sound familiar?

The point is that in politics there are no guarantees. A president cannot always split the difference or compromise or get along or be "bipartisan." Sometimes a president has to take a chance and risk his approval rating to stand up for the people who elected him.

If the Democrats go into the 2010 midterm elections without passing concrete measures that move the pendulum back toward labor and away from corporate domination it will remind voters that the Democratic Party is still the party of Mondale, Dukakis, Gore-Lieberman, Carter, Clinton, and Kerry. These guys can ride in tanks, say they love guns and the death penalty, call for deregulating business and slashing welfare, or salute and say "reporting for duty" -- but they're still a bunch of hapless losers. That's why it's so easy to Swift Boat the Democrats. Their "brand" is already identified with weakness and waffling. You can always leave it to the Democrats to fumble the ball on the goal line -- just as they did with the health care reform bill.

The health insurance and financial services industries that Obama must confront on behalf of the people have wreaked far more damage to American society than anything Kennedy faced. One year in office is too short a time to judge a president's success or failure. That's why historians never do that. But so far we've seen Wall Street, the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and even Fox News roll President Obama.

In 1962, John F. Kennedy was heavy handed in his response to the steel industry. You could even say (accurately) that he abused his executive power. But he did it for the right reasons and as a result it was a politically popular heavy-handedness. President Obama seems to never do anything "heavy handed"; he has a "light touch." In 1960, Kennedy had squeaked into office in one of the closest elections in American history (a far narrower margin than Obama's in 2008), the Southern wing of his party was up in arms against him, and he had a serious challenge daily from Nikita Khrushchev and the Soviet Union. Yet even while facing a contentious midterm election Kennedy rapped the knuckles of steel industry executives. The time will come when Obama is going to have to rap some knuckles of corporate titans himself if he wants to deliver on his promises and be remembered as a successful president.

More on Financial Crisis

Federal health officials said Wednesday they have cut billions of dollars from the projected cost of a program to push doctors and hospitals to use electronic medical records, suggesting their previous estimates overstated the number of health care providers likely to adopt the technology.

The goal to create a digital health record for every American in the next five years was first set under President George W. Bush. The project picked up steam in the Obama administration, which regards it as vital to controlling soaring health care costs.

In May, budget officials estimated they would spend up to $47 billion in stimulus money to help doctors and hospitals purchase the systems. But in a press briefing on Wednesday, officials said that figure had been chopped nearly in half to between $14.1 billion and $27.3 billion.

"A program like this has never been done on this national scale," Tony Trenkle, who directs the office of e-health standards and services for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the Huffington Post Investigative Fund in an interview.

"This is our best estimate at this point. We are going to refine these estimates based on comments and others who look at our assumptions," he said.

Fewer than one in five American doctors and hospitals now use digital record systems. Many health policy experts say that computerizing health records could not only cut costs by reducing dangerous medical mistakes and wasteful spending but also improve the quality of care. Federal officials hope that among other things patients would be able to take custody of their medical histories and send them to doctors and hospitals as they choose.

Under the $787 billion stimulus law, signed by President Obama in February, doctors can receive as much as $44,000 in extra Medicare payments for adopting electronic health records and making "meaningful use" out of them. Hospitals are also eligible to receive millions of dollars from Medicare under the plan. But providers who fail to adopt the technology by 2015 will be penalized with lowered Medicare payments.

Since February, health officials have offered several different estimates of how much the government would be spending under the plan. They said that further revisions are possible as they evaluate how many doctors and hospitals purchase the equipment and apply for stimulus reimbursement.

The law gave federal officials until the end of the year to come up with regulations that defined what would be considered meaningful use. The 556-page proposed rule was released jointly on Wednesday by Medicare officials and David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

The document provides the most detailed information to date on the progress of the plan to digitize medicine--and the challenges it presents.

The report predicts that most of the nation's 5,000 hospitals will be eligible for the stimulus payments from Medicare. But the report found that as many as half of eligible doctors will not adopt the technology in time. However, Blumenthal said in a statement that he expects the adoption rate to be much higher once his office initiates programs to help doctors qualify for the stimulus funds.

While many doctors have said they are pleased with digitized record systems, others have complained that the systems can be clunky to use and can slow them down. Some also argue that they spend too much time staring at a computer screen rather than interacting with their patients. Advocates agree that switching over can take some adjustment, but say that most doctors who have done so are pleased with the results.

The "meaningful use" rules, released one day before the Dec. 31 deadline, were long awaited by technology companies that are expecting a major new market for their products.

Among other things the rules set timetables for the benchmarks doctors and hospitals will have to meet over the next five years to qualify for reimbursements.

Federal officials said on Wednesday that they are hoping for significant feedback from the public on the proposed rules and would make changes if warranted. Final regulations are expected to be released in the spring.

More on Health Care

The current TV ad for SeroquelXR is so depressing it is hard to watch. One full viewing was enough - after that it was zapped by the remote after the first treacly musical note. I found the ad so disturbing that later I went to the AstraZenaca site so I could make sure that I was not overreacting. I wasn't - second after drawn out second (an inexorable 90 seconds) of people literally fading into the background. I have to give it to the ad agency - they certainly captured the feel of depression. The monotone drone of the narrator lists dozens of side-effects - many of which sound more dire than the bipolar condition the ad is portraying. Nothing like emphasizing despondence during the holiday season (and just try getting an appointment with a psychiatrist at this time of year).

I support using pharmaceuticals to address mental health issues - and I gratefully use them myself - but I am appalled by ads that sell brand-name medications direct to consumers. I pay a psychiatrist a significant hourly fee to work with me on finding medications that work for me. Neither the psychiatrist nor I need to watch a commercial to make an informed decision.

Pharmaceutical companies are entitled to make a profit and thank goodness they are willing to invest upfront money to work on providing better solutions for all of us - but there is something institutionally sick when an ad foments depression to sell a solution for that depression.

My friend killed herself two years ago this December - she was bipolar and possibly Seroquel could have helped her. But watching this Seroquel ad was not going to help her. It is more likely that she would have decided that the woman getting off the couch at the end of the commercial, still bathed in the pattern of the couch upholstery, was about to pull a Sylvia Plath.

More on Advertising

Last week, Senate Democrats passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The right wing's quest to kill President Obama's No. 1 domestic priority has ended and Santa has delivered a lump of coal to Senator Jim DeMint, who gleefully predicted that defeat of health reform "will be [Obama's] Waterloo; it will break him."

Progressives in the Senate have reached a momentous crossroads, just as our predecessors did in 1935, when they passed the Social Security Act, and in 1965, when they passed the Medicare Act. Both of those bills were giant steps forward for the health and economic security of the American people. Both were bitterly opposed by conservatives, who waged strident campaigns of fear and loathing, warning that the bills would lead to "socialism."

Make no mistake, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a profoundly progressive bill. As Ezra Klein wrote in the Washington Post, "The bill is the most important social policy achievement since the Great Society." It will usher in three truly historic reforms.

First, we are going to extend access to quality, affordable health care coverage to nearly every American. An estimated 30 million Americans who do not have coverage will get it thanks to this bill. By itself, this is an historic achievement every bit on par with passage of Social Security and Medicare.

A second great reform in this bill is an array of provisions cracking down on abuses by health insurance companies - abuses that currently leave most Americans just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Among other things, this bill will extend coverage to people with preexisting conditions, and it will eventually ban the practice of denying coverage due to preexisting condition. It will stop insurers from cancelling the policies of people who get sick. And it will stop discrimination against women, who now pay premiums up to 48 percent higher than premiums for men.

A third great reform is something I have championed for many years. Our bill includes a whole array of provisions designed to jumpstart America's transformation into a genuine wellness society. For example, we are going to require reimbursement for recommended preventive services such as mammograms without deductibles or other cost-sharing requirements. We expand Community Health Centers, and help businesses to create workplace wellness programs. This bill will begin to transition our current sick care system into a true health care system - one focused on preventing chronic disease and keeping people out of the hospital in the first place.

By passing this legislation, we will achieve a progressive prize that has eluded Congresses and Presidents going back to Teddy Roosevelt. And we now know why those earlier efforts failed: Because the special interests defending the broken - but highly profitable - status quo are extraordinarily powerful. At long last, we are going to break their stranglehold.

To be sure, the path to securing 60 votes was paved with painful compromises. That's also the way our predecessors were able to get the votes to pass Social Security and Medicare, both of which had big gaps in coverage when they were first enacted. They passed bills that were less than a full loaf, and then they came back for more in later years.

Instead of that "partial loaf" analogy, I like to think of this bill as like a starter home. It is not the mansion of our dreams. But it has a solid foundation, giving every American access to quality, affordable coverage. It has an excellent, protective roof, which will shelter Americans from the worst abuses of health insurance companies. And this starter home has plenty of room for additions and improvements.

The reforms in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are extraordinary achievements. That's exactly why the right wing has pulled out the stops to try to kill it. But let's be clear: This bill is the beginning of health reform, not the end.

We are on the threshold of a brand new decade, a decade that will surely bring more challenges -- but the potential both personally and collectively is unlimited. What do you want this new decade to be about? What do you want it to represent for you? What do you want your life to be 10 years from now? What do you want to see happen in the world?

TIME magazine's recent cover feature 'Decade from Hell' was poignant: From 9/11 to natural disasters, terrorist bombings to the economic meltdown -- who among us was left unscathed by these events? Self-serving motives and hidden agendas, scandals and swindles brought the world to its knees. The beliefs and values that we held as a collective to be true were questioned, challenged and proven detrimental. How much of what we believe is really ours anyway? Who's life are we living? By who's standards are we manifesting our reality? Many are struggling with these kinds of questions but rest assured the answers are not far behind.

Despite it being a decade of challenge and loss, a new world order has been brewing. This new order requires all of us to expand our scope and include the collective in our dreams and aspirations, mission and purpose. I feel Gandhi's words 'Be the change you want to see in the world' are more meaningful now than ever before. As the sun sets on this turbulent decade, I hope we won't be tempted to repeat the mistakes of the past. Perhaps we can rid ourselves of all the madness of previous years and together usher in peace and prosperity throughout the world.

When our collective energies and intentions are used in service of the greater good, we have the power to shape and transform history. Its not one person's job to take on this mighty task but the task of the many who need to step up to the plate. Out of the chaos a more mature and insightful humanity will rise. First the breakdown and then the breakthrough. You can bet we are on the verge of a breakthrough.

The Chinese have a saying 'May you live in interesting times'. I think many of us agree that we do. The world is at a crossroads and humanity will decide which way the pendulum will swing. I hope we swing toward human values and courtesy, community and family. A return to such fundamentals are in order if we wish to live in a more humane world. Enough of the 'Me' mentality! This has been the cause of so many societal ills and misfortunes. Let' make sure in this coming decade the 'We' consciousness guides the human story. Bear in mind that each person's decision affects the whole. We don't live on this planet alone, we share it with six billion other people who are affected by the choices we make. Our only hope is in a higher and more altruistic consciousness. Ultimately, this will be the catalyst for restoring world conditions. We need as many on board as possible who are interested in contributing and helping to elevate the consciousness of the planet.

As we prepare our goals and plans for the New Year thus imagining all the wonderful possibilities and surprises that lie ahead, please imagine the same for everyone around the world. I will leave you with these words...

Imagine a world where no pain, hunger and deprivation exist.
Imagine a world where everyone is treated equally and with respect.
Imagine a world where every man, woman and child have a roof over their head, clean clothes to wear and food to eat.
Imagine a world where everyone works together to protect the meek and forgive the enemy.
Imagine a world where everyone can express their God given talent, speak the truth within their hearts, and be allowed to become all they were meant to become.
Imagine a world where people from all races work and live in true harmony, tolerance and compassion.
Imagine a world where every man, woman and child is made to feel loved and accepted, important and valuable.
Imagine a world where nations unite out of love and compassion, understanding and brotherhood.
Imagine a world where everyone supports a higher will...just imagine...our planet will be healthy, wealthy and happy.

Is this too optimistic? Maybe, but is it possible? Absolutely! Why not just imagine...

More on The Inner Life

A few days ago, I read this post from Robert Reich, and it got me to thinking: I am becoming more and more convinced that the future of American health care financing will be single-payer. It's not inevitable--at least not quite yet--because health reform just might work and just might preserve and strengthen the public-private balance we have today. The health reform legislation we have in Congress right now, however, is not going to be enough in the long term. There will necessarily be additional legislative fixes that we'll have to figure out as we go.

In fact, Atul Gawande is back with another excellent piece in the New Yorker that highlights the very important role of demonstration projects in the health reform legislation intended to discover--by trial and error--which approaches to cost control actually work and which do not. He argues quite effectively on the basis of historical precedent in agriculture that this is the only way forward when there is no clear single answer to the problems confronting us. So, if reform passes, and we stumble upon some things that work to bring costs down, quality up, and the like, then there's a chance that the advent of single payer will be delayed--perhaps indefinitely. That's one scenario.

Or, despite the best of intentions, health reform will fail to control costs well enough. That wouldn't surprise me, because the simple fact of the matter is that everyone seems to want to live forever (in theory) and that puts a pretty high ceiling on the amount that people are willing to pay for medical care with any potential for benefit. Never mind that all care also comes complete with potential risks or that people who are willing to pay exorbitant amounts are actually shielded from the majority of the costs associated with their decision to seek care. Those two factors are only akin to ignoring that you're burning and dousing yourself with more and more gasoline. So costs increase, and we actually arrive at the much talked about point of unsustainability. Our health care system broken, the government has no choice but to step in and create a single payer system with global federal budgeting for health care. If you're one of those people who likes to worry about the notion of socialized medicine, please feel free to envision this scenario and commence to freaking out now. That's road number one to single payer.

Road number two also leads to single payer, but the payer isn't the federal government. Instead, it's a private insurance mega-corporation. We're already seeing that in many states, one or two private insurers make up about 85% of the market. In fact, as Reich reports, these data are from almost 5 years ago. In the intervening time, the private insurance market has consolidated even further, and it shows no signs of stopping. If the trend continues, it's not difficult to envision one or two extremely large insurance companies buying everyone else out. Ordinarily, the government would intervene in such cases to break up the emerging monopoly. But here's the kicker: insurance companies are specifically excluded by law from all anti-trust provisions. That means nothing's stopping Cigna or United Healthcare from taking over the whole show. And that's the second road to single payer, which Reich describes bluntly as: "a national health care system that's controlled by a handful of very large corporations accountable neither to American voters nor to the market." The prospect of that, friends, is far more likely than I'd care to envision.

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More on Health

Before I get to my obligatory 'best films of the year' list, I'd like to take a moment to run down a list of films that are worthy of mention outside of the very best of the year. Some of these films are great pictures that missed the top-ten. Some are surprisingly good pictures that would otherwise have no business on a 'best of' list. Some are simply movies that I felt like pointing out for one reason or another. Enjoy...

2012
A movie that, against all odds, actually turned out to be entertaining and genuinely good. Sure, the special effects were almost comical in their overwhelming scenes of world-ending carnage. Yes, we once again had to suffer through a 'distant father learns to be a better parent and wins his family back' yarn. But we also had lead roles for such national treasures as Oliver Platt and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Plus we had compelling supporting work from Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, and Danny Glover. While I could take or leave the $260 million Earth-crushing disaster scenes, I found myself actually enjoying 2012 as, of all things, an acting treat. It's not a great movie, but it's a surprisingly entertaining, compelling, and engaging b-movie disaster romp that does its genre proud.

The Blind Side
I don't know how much of the story is actually truthful, and I don't care. This refreshingly low-key heart-warmer works as a wonderfully entertaining fictional story. Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron make a solidly deadpan comic duo, and the film works because it is just as much Michael Oher's story as it is Leigh Anne Tuohy's. The picture rarely descends into schmaltz and Bullock refuses to let the fictional version of Tuohy come off as either too brash or too saintly (she really doesn't have a big speech or big scene). If the film's astounding success is indeed due to the film's Christian fanbase, then let's welcome this most Veggie Tales-ish Christian fable. At the end of the day, The Blind Side is just a darn good movie that is a pretty much perfect version of what it wants to be.

The Children
This chiller is the best direct-to-DVD horror film ever made, and it's probably the best 'evil children' movie of all time too. What makes it so horrifying is the mundane cause of the carnage, and the unsettling question of whether you would or could slaughter your own child to save your own life. Lean, mean, well-acted, and sharply directed, this is a genuinely terrifying horror film no matter where it first premiered.

Chocolate
Prachya Pinkaew's follow up to The Protector has a relatively stupid plot and unremarkable acting. But it has some of the most elaborate and painful martial arts sequences I've ever seen, including a climactic shop-house showdown that is absolutely the best fight sequence of the year, if not the decade.

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra
There is such a thing as getting points for 'giving the audience what they came for'. You want 110 minutes of colorful GI Joes and colorful Cobra minions killing the holy hell out of each other, with the kind of over-the-top carnage and wanton violence that you imagined with your own action figures when you were nine-years old? That's exactly what you get with this inexplicably despised Stephen Summers picture. It's not art, and the climax falls apart, but those first ninety-minutes deliver exactly what a GI Joe movie should be. The critical massacre of this one is akin to stabbing someone in the gut and complaining when they bleed all over your carpet.

Inglourious Basterds
While it's a little too long and its morality is a bit icky, no one can deny the sheer artistry of Quentin Tarantino's critical and commercial comeback. What's most amazing is how Christoph Waltz, as a deviously charming Nazi commander, takes all of Tarantino's worst dialogue vices and turns them into razor-sharp weapons of suspense and tension. The film overall is merely good, but there are many many great moments within.

Precious
A flawed and sometimes messy film about a very messed up life, this one easily skirts uncomfortable questions about racial, gender, and class stereotypes by explicitly setting out to tell the singular story of a single human life. It also contains several wonderful performances, from everyone to Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique to Paula Patton and Mariah Carrey. It is not the be all-end all for movies about the poverty in inner-city, but its greatest strength is that it never tries to be.

Saw VI
The only thing rarer than a franchise that actually makes it to six movies is a franchise where the sixth film is actually the best of the series. This astounding comeback film for the struggling series regains its footing by returning to its roots. By putting Tobin Bell back on the center stage, using the health insurance industry as an antithesis for John Kramer's philosophy, and actually creating tension and suspense in each Jigsaw trap, this sixth entry improves on every prior entry. Saw VI is the best Saw film yet, and stands on its own as a bloody-good horror film.

Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins
This direct-to-cable reboot of the live-action Scooby Doo franchise is every bit the Batman Begins to the previous films' Batman Forever/Batman & Robin sensibilities. With sharp writing, likable and plausible characters, and a back-to-basics approach, this is probably the best Scooby Doo movie we will ever see.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Why, you ask, is this not on my list of the year's worst films? Well, by any normal measure it would be. But I have a suspicion that Chris Klein's over-the-top work as Detective Charlie Nash may be some kind of genius. Is he merely giving a lousy performance in a bad movie, or is he pulling some kind of brilliant post-modern riff on every bad 1980s cop movie? I'm not sure, but every moment that he is onscreen is alive with powerful waves of awesome stupid.

Where the Wild Things Are
'Everybody hurts' in Spike Jonze's bruising adaptation of the classic children's story. This one just missed my ten-best list, but I imagine it will age very well over the next decade or so. This is a staggeringly emotional journey that is both completely tuned to the minds of children and completely over their heads. I have my issues with the second act, but the set-up and the finale are pitch-perfect. There are moments in the end that are just heartrendingly profound.

Wonder Woman
This direct-to-DVD animated origin story renders the eventual live-action movie null and void. Sorry folks, we've already got our epic, thrilling, and staggeringly cool Wonder Woman movie. With astoundingly violent mass-battle scenes, an angry feminist streak, and more than enough humor to compensate for both, this is easily the best of the DC Animated Universe movies thus far.

World's Greatest Dad
The previews went out of their way to hide the narrative of this Bobcat Goldthwait comedy, so I won't go into any details here. Easily Robin Williams' best movie in ages, this gem is a sharply critical satire of society's need to... sorry no spoilers. Let's just say that when you realize where this movie is going, you'll wonder why no one every made a movie about it until now.

OK, coming in the next day or two, we'll get to the actual 'favorite movies of 2009'.

Scott Mendelson