Short Sharp Science: Confirmed: Fossil Ida is not a human ancestor

Short Sharp Science: Confirmed: Fossil Ida is not a human ancestor

An Introductory Approach to Physical Cosmology as a Means of Understanding the Universe

The Cosmic Microwave Background temperature fluctuations from the 5-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data seen over the full sky. The average temperature is 2.725 Kelvin (degrees above absolute zero; absolute zero is equivalent to -273.15 C or -459 F

 "Observations suggest that the universe as we know it began around 13.7 billion years ago. Since then, the evolution of the universe has passed through three phases. The very early universe, which is still poorly understood, was the split second in which the universe was so hot that particles had energies higher than those currently accessible in particle accelerators on Earth. Therefore, while the basic features of this epoch have been worked out in the big bang theory, the details are largely based on educated guesses.

"Following this, in the early universe, the evolution of the universe proceeded according to known high energy physics. This is when the first protons, electrons and neutrons formed, then nuclei and finally atoms. With the formation of neutral hydrogen, the cosmic microwave background was emitted. Finally, the epoch of structure formation began, when matter started to aggregate into the first stars and quasars, and ultimately galaxies, clusters of galaxies and superclusters formed. The future of the universe is not yet firmly known, but according to the ΛCDM model it will continue expanding forever," according to Wikipedia.

The above illustration addresses "Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy," which concerns "the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of our universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution.[1] Cosmology involves itself with studying the motions of the celestial bodies and the first cause. For most of human history, it has been a branch of metaphysics and religion. Cosmology as a science originates with the Copernican principle, which implies that celestial bodies obey identical physical laws to those on earth, and Newtonian mechanics, which first allowed us to understand those motions. This is now called celestial mechanics. Physical cosmology, as it is now understood, began with the twentieth century development of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and better astronomical observations of extremely distant objects.

"The twentieth century advances made it possible to speculate about the origins of the universe and allowed scientists to establish the Big Bang as the leading cosmological model, which most cosmologists now accept as the basis for their theories and observations. Vanishingly few researchers still advocate any of a handful of alternative cosmologies, but professional cosmologists generally agree that the big bang best explains observations. Physical cosmology, roughly speaking, deals with the very largest objects in the universe (galaxies, clusters and superclusters), the very earliest distinct objects to form (quasars) and the very early universe, when it was nearly homogeneous (hot big bang, cosmic inflation, cosmic microwave background radiation and the Weyl curvature hypothesis).

"Cosmology is unusual in physics for drawing heavily on the work of particle physicists' experiments, and research into phenomenology and even string theory; from astrophysicists; from general relativity research; and from plasma physics. Thus, cosmology unites the physics of the largest structures in the universe with the physics of the smallest structures in the universe," according to Wikipedia.



"Light elements, primarily hydrogen and helium, were created in the Big Bang. These light elements were spread too fast and too thinly in the Big Bang process (see nucleosynthesis) to form the most stable medium-sized atomic nuclei, like iron and nickel. This fact allows for later energy release, as such intermediate-sized elements are formed in our era. The formation of such atoms powers the steady energy-releasing reactions in stars, and also contributes to sudden energy releases, such as in novae. Gravitational collapse of matter into black holes is also thought to power the most energetic processes, generally seen at the centers of galaxies (see quasars and in general active galaxies).

"Cosmologists are still unable to explain all cosmological phenomena purely on the basis of known conventional forms of energy, for example those related to the accelerating expansion of the universe, and therefore invoke a yet unexplored form of energy called dark energy[2] to account for certain cosmological observations. One hypothesis is that dark energy is the energy of virtual particles (which mathematically must exist in vacuum due to the uncertainty principle).

"There is no unambiguous way to define the total energy of the universe in the current best theory of gravity, general relativity. As a result it remains controversial whether one can meaningfully say that total energy is conserved in an expanding universe. For instance, each photon that travels through intergalactic space loses energy due to the redshift effect. This energy is not obviously transferred to any other system, so seems to be permanently lost. Nevertheless some cosmologists insist that energy is conserved in some sense" according to Wikipedia.

"Thermodynamics of the universe is a field of study to explore which form of energy dominates the cosmos - relativistic particles which are referred to as radiation, or non-relativistic particles which are referred to as matter. The former are particles whose rest mass is zero or negligible compared to their energy, and therefore move at the speed of light or very close to it; the latter are particles whose kinetic energy is much lower than their rest mass and therefore move much slower than the speed of light.

"As the universe expands, both matter and radiation in it become diluted. However, the universe also cools down, meaning that the average energy per particle is getting smaller with time. Therefore the radiation becomes weaker, and dilutes faster than matter. Thus with the expansion of the universe radiation becomes less dominant than matter. In the very early universe radiation dictates the rate of deceleration of the universe's expansion, and the universe is said to be 'radiation dominated'. At later times, when the average energy per photon is roughly 10 eV and lower, matter dictates the rate of deceleration and the universe is said to be 'matter dominated'. The intermediate case is not treated well analytically. As the expansion of the universe continues, matter dilutes even further and the cosmological constant becomes dominant, leading to an acceleration in the universe's expansion." according to Wikipedia.



"Modern cosmology developed along tandem observational and theoretical tracks. In 1915, Albert Einstein developed his theory of general relativity. At the time, physicists were prejudiced to believe in a perfectly static universe without beginning or end. Einstein added a cosmological constant to his theory to try to force it to allow for a static universe with matter in it. The so-called Einstein universe is, however, unstable. It is bound to eventually start expanding or contracting. The cosmological solutions of general relativity were found by Alexander Friedmann, whose equations describe the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universe, which may expand or contract.

"In the 1910s, Vesto Slipher (and later Carl Wilhelm Wirtz) interpreted the red shift of spiral nebulae as a Doppler shift that indicated they were receding from Earth. However, it is notoriously difficult to determine the distance to astronomical objects: even if it is possible to measure their angular size it is usually impossible to know their actual size or luminosity. They did not realize that the nebulae were actually galaxies outside our own Milky Way, nor did they speculate about the cosmological implications.

"In 1927, the Belgian Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaître independently derived the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker equations and proposed, on the basis of the recession of spiral nebulae, that the universe began with the "explosion" of a "primeval atom"—what was later called the big bang.

"In 1929, Edwin Hubble provided an observational basis for Lemaître's theory. Hubble proved that the spiral nebulae were galaxies and measured their distances by observing Cepheid variable stars. He discovered a relationship between the redshift of a galaxy and its luminosity. He interpreted this as evidence that the galaxies are receding in every direction at speeds (relative to the Earth) directly proportional to their distance. This fact is known as Hubble's law. The relationship between distance and speed, however, was accurately ascertained only relatively recently: Hubble was off by a factor of ten.

 

"Given the cosmological principle, Hubble's law suggested that the universe was expanding. This idea allowed for two opposing possibilities. One was Lemaître's Big Bang theory, advocated and developed by George Gamow. The other possibility was Fred Hoyle's steady state model in which new matter would be created as the galaxies moved away from each other. In this model, the universe is roughly the same at any point in time.

"For a number of years the support for these theories was evenly divided. However, the observational evidence began to support the idea that the universe evolved from a hot dense state. Since the discovery of the cosmic microwave background in 1965 it has been regarded as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the cosmos. Before the late 1960s, many cosmologists thought the infinitely dense singularity at the starting time of Friedmann's cosmological model was a mathematical over-idealization, and that the universe was contracting before entering the hot dense state and starting to expand again. This is Richard Tolman's oscillatory universe. In the sixties, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose demonstrated that this idea was unworkable, and the singularity is an essential feature of Einstein's gravity. This led the majority of cosmologists to accept the Big Bang, in which the universe we observe began a finite time ago," according to Wikipedia

Primordial Earth Most Likely Was Populated by Numerous Colonies of Arsenic-Eating Bacteria

Examples of "lowly bacteria found in a foul-smelling hot spring near Mono Lake, California is a living window into Earth’s early history, a time when photosynthesis was barely evolved and the atmosphere non-existent."

Image: Science

The photos above provide evidence that: "Arsenic(III) Fuels Anoxygenic Photosynthesis in Hot Spring Biofilms from Mono Lake, California."

Science Magazine has written that: "Phylogenetic analysis indicates that microbial arsenic metabolism is ancient and probably extends back to the primordial Earth. In microbial biofilms growing on the rock surfaces of anoxic brine pools fed by hot springs containing arsenite and sulfide at high concentrations, we discovered light-dependent oxidation of arsenite [As(III)] to arsenate [As(V)] occurring under anoxic conditions. The communities were composed primarily of Ectothiorhodospira-like purple bacteria or Oscillatoria-like cyanobacteria. A pure culture of a photosynthetic bacterium grew as a photoautotroph when As(III) was used as the sole photosynthetic electron donor. The strain contained genes encoding a putative As(V) reductase but no detectable homologs of the As(III) oxidase genes of aerobic chemolithotrophs, suggesting a reverse functionality for the reductase. Production of As(V) by anoxygenic photosynthesis probably opened niches for primordial Earth's first As(V)-respiring prokaryotes."

That points to the discovery of: "A new kind of photosynthesis that uses arsenic instead of water to harvest light promises to rewrite evolutionary history - at least that of arsenic metabolism on Earth.

It is well known that: "The evolution of efficient, oxygen-based photosynthesis has been hard to explain. Primitive forms gathered energy from light by using it to free electrons from sulphur and iron in an oxygen-free environment. Oxygenic photosynthesis, which involves freeing electrons from water, takes more energy and produces oxygen. But oxygen was deadly to most primitive life on Earth. "The first organisms to do this would die," says Hyman Hartman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This realization has lead some scientists to look to arsenic using bacteria as an answer to this vexing problem because "arsenic metabolism could have evolved much earlier, giving plenty of time for bacteria to diversify."

"Some bacteria use arsenate (a deadly poison) - arsenic with four oxygen atoms attached - as an energy source. It was thought that this form of metabolism didn't get going until long after photosynthesis filled the atmosphere with oxygen about 2.7 billion years ago. When this happened, naturally occurring arsenite would be transformed into arsenate."

"Ronald Oremland and colleagues at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California," believe "arsenic metabolism could have evolved much earlier, giving plenty of time for bacteria to diversify."

"Mono Lake in California, USA NASA Landsat 7 image," Furthermore: "In the warm, bubbling pools of Mono Lake in California, scientists have isolated a bacterium that fuels itself on arsenic."

The team of American scientists explained: "Once you spit out oxygen, all kinds of things arise," said Ronald Oremland, a United States Geological Survey biogeochemist and co-author of the bacteria’s description, published today in Science. "It’s Part One of the evolution of Earth."

Regarding Mono Lake, which lies near the Sierra Nevada mountain range, Dr Oremland explained: "These lakes are fed by hydrothermal waters that leach out arsenic-containing minerals from the surrounding rocks."

The arsenic fueled bacteria "had colonised small, hot pools, forming colourful "biofilms"."

Dr Oremland explained their findings: "We suspected that these bacteria were using arsenic to make a living, so we scraped the biofilms off the rock and studied them under laboratory conditions."

Bacteria living in Mono Lake, California can survive the high levels of arsenic. BBC NEWS

The original study
T.R. Kulp, S.E. Hoeft, M. Asao, M.T. Madigan, J.T. Hollibaugh, J.C. Fisher, J.F. Stolz, C.W. Culbertson, L.G. Miller, R.S. Oremland, Arsenic(III) Fuels Anoxygenic Photosynthesis in Hot Spring Biofilms from Mono Lake, California, Science, 321 (2008) 967-970. DOI: 10.1126/science.1160799

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer satellite, IBEX, Provides Evidence That a Narrow Ribbon Structure of Densely Packed Neutral Atoms Bounds our Solar System

A map of neutral atoms, generated by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, shows a ribbonlike structure near the edge of the heliosphere, the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space. The ribbon is not predicted by any model. Blue denotes the lowest intensity of atoms, red the highest.
Credit: Image from Southwest Research Institute

Ron Cowen, writing for the October 16, 2009 edition of ScienceNews reveals that: "New observations reveal a dense ribbon structure that current models don’t explain.

ScienceNews' Cowen summarizes recent observations: "The edge of the solar system is tied up with a ribbon, astronomers have discovered. The first global map of the solar system reveals that its edge is nothing like what had been predicted. Neutral atoms, which are the only way to image the fringes of the solar system, are densely packed into a narrow ribbon rather than evenly distributed."

Herbert Funsten of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, who along with Stephen Fuselier of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif.have produced a paper detailing their findings to which co-author Funsten says: "Our maps show structure and energy spectra that are completely different from what any model has predicted.”

Cowen, of ScienceNews, adds that: "NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer satellite, or IBEX, discovered the narrow ribbon, which completes nearly a full circle across the sky. The density of neutral atoms in the band is two to three times that in adjacent regions.

"IBEX is a NASA mission that will for the first time take a picture of the edge of our solar system. This video explains the way IBEX will create a global map of the boundaries of our solar system. IBEX uses energetic neutral atoms to map these boundaries. The Voyagers spacecraft launched in the 1970s is looking at two points only, while IBEX images the global structure of the boundaries that surround our solar system."

"IBEX will study the interaction between the solar wind and the material beyond our Solar System called the interstellar medium. The solar wind flowing out of the sun inflates a bubble that we call the heliosphere. IBEX's job is to study those boundaries and understand how they really work and tell us how the heliosphere is able to do the important job of protecting us here on Earth as well as astronauts in space from the dangerous galactic cosmic rays."

"These and related findings, reported in six papers posted online October 15 in Science," Cowen explains "will not only send theorists back to the drawing board, researchers say, but may ultimately provide new insight on the interaction between the heliosphere — the vast bubble in which the solar system resides — and surrounding space."

Tom Krimigis of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.developes further on the concept of the solar system bounded by a huge bubble explains: "The bubble is inflated by solar wind, the high-speed stream of charged particles blowing out from the sun to the solar system’s very edge. For 48 years, researchers have assumed that the solar wind sculpted the structure at the heliosphere’s boundary with interstellar space."

Theorist Nathan Schwadron of Boston University, a lead author of one of the studies, says: "...the newly found ribbon’s orientation suggests that the galaxy’s magnetic field, just outside the heliosphere, seems to be the chief organizer of structure in this region."

ScienceNews writer Cowen adds that: "It’s not known whether the ribbon lasts for just a few years or is a permanent feature.

He continues: "Equally puzzling are observations of the same boundary region with an instrument on the Cassini spacecraft, which recorded the density of atoms at higher energies, above 6,000 electron volts. From its vantage point at Saturn, Cassini sees a belt rather than a ribbonlike structure, a team led by Krimigis also reports in Science. The belt is substantially broader than the ribbon seen by IBEX but is in the same general area."

Schwadron's observations are summarized by Cowen: "The heliosphere shields the solar system from 90 percent of energetic cosmic rays — high-speed charged particles that would otherwise bombard the planets and harm life. Understanding more about the heliosphere and its ability to filter out galactic cosmic rays could be critical for assessing the safety of human space travel. The new findings may also help predict how the heliosphere varies in shape and size as it moves through the galaxy and encounters regions of space having different densities and magnetic field strengths."

David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, notes: "The ribbon found by IBEX, recorded at energies between 200 and 6,000 electron volts, is brightest at about 1,000 electron volts and lies between about 100 and 125 astronomical units from the sun." Cowen explains: "One astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and the sun. The atoms recorded by IBEX, which orbits Earth, took a year or two, depending on their energies, to reach the craft from the outer edge of the heliosphere.

 

Image: Walt Feimer/Goddard Space Flight Center

"The IBEX ribbon runs perpendicular to the direction of the galaxy’s magnetic field at the interstellar boundary, an indication that the field has a much stronger than expected influence on the sun’s environs," Cowen includes that a report (issued by) Schwadron and his colleagues regarding the ribbon adds: "One possibility is that pressure from this external magnetic field has forced particles just inside the heliosphere to bunch together into a ribbon."

“First and foremost, this is a big surprise because we thought we know a lot about this region, the edge of the heliosphere,” McComas says. Cowen cites previous ScienceNews articles and reminds readers that: "The Voyager 1 craft in 2004 (SN: 1/3/04, p. 7) and the Voyager 2 craft in 2007 (SN: 8/2/08, p. 7) journeyed to opposite sides of this fringe region of the solar system and crossed the termination shock — where the solar wind encounters a shock that precedes the influx of particles drifting into the solar system from interstellar space. Both craft recorded the density of particles and the strength of the magnetic fields."

McComas points out: "Both Voyager 1 and 2 missed seeing the newly found ribbon because it spans a region between their flight paths,... No existing model can explain the ribbon, he adds, which was found independently by two instruments on IBEX."

Krimigis notes: "Researchers had assumed that the pressure from the solar wind would compress in the heliosphere in the direction that the solar system was moving through space and create a cometlike tail in the opposite direction." Krimigis adds further perspective: "Now we know that’s wrong..”

Study coauthor Stephen Fuselier of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif., notes: "IBEX has also generated the first maps of neutral hydrogen and oxygen atoms entering the solar system from interstellar space. Previous observations had traced only incoming helium atoms. The sensitivity of the IBEX instruments allowed researchers to record the relatively small number of oxygen atoms that travel from beyond the termination shock, about 16 billion kilometers from Earth, to the spacecraft."

Fuselier adds further: "Hydrogen atoms are more abundant than either helium or oxygen but their low mass means they are easily swept aside by the high-speed solar wind and can’t readily be detected. The sun’s unusually low activity during the current minimum in the solar cycle allowed more of the hydrogen atoms from the outer heliosphere to travel unimpeded to the inner solar system, enabling IBEX to record those atoms."

An artists rendering of IBEX in proximity of a ribbon structure and energy spectra that nearly encircles the solar system.

10/17/09 President Barack Obama Weekly Radio Address

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17TH, 2009 AT 12:01 AM
Weekly Address: Taking the Insurance Companies on Down the Stretch
Posted by Jesse Lee
As the health insurance reform debate enters into its final stages in Congress, the President denounces the desperate and deceptive last-ditch efforts of the health insurance companies to derail it.

read the transcript

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________
For Immediate Release            October 17, 2009

WEEKLY ADDRESS: President Obama Calls Hails Progress on Health Insurance Reform Despite Defenders of the Status Quo

WASHINGTON – In his weekly address, President Barack Obama praised the progress that has been made on health insurance reform, and spoke out against those who defend the status quo in order to score political points and protect their profits.  With reform the closest it has ever been to becoming law, the insurance companies are rolling out deceptive ads, paying for misleading studies, and flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists.  Now, Washington needs to serve the American people, not the special interests.

  October 17, 2009 , 10:44 am

The Saturday Word: Health Care Battles

By Janie Lorber

"President Obama defended his health care overhaul against the health insurers with renewed gusto Saturday morning after a week in which insurance companies circulated reports and ran advertisements deeply critical of his plans.

“They’re filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads. They’re flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists and campaign contributions. And they’re funding studies designed to mislead the American people,” Mr. Obama said adding firepower to Congressional Democrats’ already hostile responses. “It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, “Take one of these, and call us in a decade.”

"His comments were the latest sign that the relationship between insurance companies and the administration has deteriorated after months of cooperation.

"On Friday the White House backed away from restrictions laid in September that prohibited insurance companies from warning Medicare recipients of potential cuts to their program in the health care overhaul. The administration also cited one company in particular, Humana, for violating Medicare rules, saying the company had misled its beneficiaries to derail the plan."

Obama Chastises "Dishonest" Health Insurers

By REUTERS

Published: October 17, 2009

 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "U.S. President Barack Obama lashed out on Saturday against the "deceptive and dishonest" efforts of health insurance companies, who he said are trying to kill healthcare reform, no matter the cost to the country.

The Democratic president's push to overhaul the $2.5 trillion (1.528 trillion pound) U.S. healthcare industry, his top domestic policy priority, received a big boost this week when the Senate Finance Committee approved its version of a reform measure with the support of Republican Senator Olympia Snowe.

"Many experts expect some version of a healthcare bill will pass this year, but there are still major disagreements on details including whether the measure will include a government-run insurance program, the "public option."

"For the first time ever, all five committees in Congress responsible for health reform have passed a version of legislation," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "As I speak to you today, we are closer to reforming the health care system than we have ever been in history."

"However, he acknowledged the overhaul still must clear significant hurdles before becoming law. "And there are still those who would try to kill reform at any cost," he said.

"The history is clear: for decades rising health care costs have unleashed havoc on families, businesses and the economy. And for decades, whenever we have tried to reform the system, the insurance companies have done everything in their considerable power to stop us."

BATTLE LEAPED IN INTENSITY THIS WEEK

"The battle over reform between angry Democrats and health insurers leaped in intensity when the industry trade group America's Health Insurance Plans issued a report on Monday, on the eve of the finance committee's vote, saying Senate healthcare legislation would lead to increases in annual insurance premiums of as much as $4,000 by 2019.

"Democrats denied the findings, citing a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that said the Finance Committee bill would make health coverage affordable to millions of Americans who do not have it and slow the growth of healthcare costs.

"In fact, the insurance industry is rolling out the big guns and breaking open their massive war chest -- to marshal their forces for one last fight to save the status quo," Obama said.

"They're filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads. They're flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists and campaign contributions. And they're funding studies designed to mislead the American people," he said.

Democratic leaders in Congress began work this week on merging the various committees' proposals on healthcare while keeping party liberals and moderates -- and Snowe -- happy.

"Senate Republicans demanded Democrats allow more time to debate the details of the sweeping plan. Obama has set the end of the year as his goal for passing a measure that would begin to slow increases in healthcare costs, regulate the insurance market and expand health coverage without increasing the federal budget deficit.

"Health insurers' shares dropped this week after news of the finance committee's vote.

"Obama vowed an overhaul will go through.

"Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, 'Take one of these, and call us in a decade.' Well, not this time," Obama said.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

Obama Praises Senate Committee's Health Care Vote

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 

Published: October 17, 2009 

 

 

 WASHINGTON (AP) -- "Pushing back against his critics, President Barack Obama says overhauling the health care system, while helping millions of people, also will test whether policy makers can ''serve the national interest despite the unrelenting efforts of the special interests.''

"The administration is trying to build momentum for the president's overhaul effort after the Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 this week for a bill that would extend health care coverage to millions of people. One Republican, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, supported the bill, and the measure faces considerable opposition from the health care industry, labor unions and large business organizations.

''The history is clear: For decades rising health care costs have unleashed havoc on families, businesses and the economy,'' the president said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. ''And for decades, whenever we have tried to reform the system, the insurance companies have done everything in their considerable power to stop us.''

"The health insurance industry released a study earlier this week concluding that the Finance Committee bill -- one of five competing House and Senate health care measures -- would raise premiums significantly for millions of people who already have health coverage.

"The report drew intense criticism from the White House, congressional Democrats and other advocates of the bill who deemed the study a last-ditch effort to sway public opinion against the measure.

"Obama said he would not abide ''those who would bend the truth or break it to score political points and stop our progress as a country.'' He accused the industry of ''filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads,'' sending money and lobbyists to Capitol Hill and paying for studies ''designed to mislead the American people.''

"The insurance industry responded Saturday, saying it supports a comprehensive, bipartisan overhaul of the system but that separate studies recently found that some of the existing proposals will increase significantly health care costs for families and employers.

''Reform needs to work and deliver on the promise made to the American people that everyone will have quality, affordable coverage,'' Karen Ignagni, president of the industry group America's Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement.

"The bills moving through Congress generally would require most Americans to buy insurance, provide federal subsidies to help lower-income people afford coverage and help small businesses defray the cost of extending coverage to their workers.

"The measures would bar insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions and limit their ability to charge higher premiums based on age or family size. Expanded coverage would be paid for by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from future Medicare payments to health care providers. Higher taxes also are included in the bills.

"Republican opponents say the bills will increase costs for patients, further job losses and give the government more of a say in who gets medical care, and what kind.

''Americans inherently know government interference drives costs up, not down,'' Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said in the GOP's weekly message. ''The massive health care plans being crafted behind closed doors in Washington will ultimately allow the government to decide what doctors we can see, what treatments the government thinks you deserve and what medicines you can receive.''

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                          White House Photo, Pete Souza_10-17-09