Obama hails efforts on clean energy, health care (AP)

[jefferson_dem]

Obama hails efforts on clean energy, health care

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says agreement on an energy bill and a promise by interest groups to squeeze trillions of dollars in savings from the health care system show that change has come to Washington.

Some of those most opposed to past attempts at health care overhaul pledged this week to reduce the annual rate of growth in such spending by 1.5 percentage points, for a promised savings of $2 trillion in the next decade.

Weeks of negotiations have led to the introduction in the House of an energy proposal that, for the first time, would mandate reductions in the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming and shift the country toward cleaner sources of energy.

Obama campaigned for president on a promise to change the way Washington works.

He said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address that he was heartened by the "willingness of those with different points of view and disparate interests to come together around common goals, to embrace a shared sense of responsibility and make historic progress."

Obama singled out utility companies and health insurers, doctors and hospitals for coming to the table.

"I have always believed that it is better to talk than not to talk, that it is far more productive to reach over a divide than to shake your fist across it," he said. "This has been an alien notion in Washington for far too long, but we are seeing that the ways of Washington are beginning to change."

<SNIP>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090516/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_health_care