One of the many contentious issues in the national health care debate is something that began 34 years ago in California when Jerry Brown, in the first year of his first governorship, signed legislation imposing a $250,000 limit on pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice cases.

The version of a national health care bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through the House contains a provision that would push – but not quite compel – California and other states with malpractice damage caps to repeal them.

Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could receive health care coverage from their employers under the bills winding their way through Congress, despite President Obama's explicit pledge that illegal immigrants would not benefit.

The House bill mandates, and the Senate bill strongly encourages, businesses to extend health care coverage to all employees. But the bills do not have exemptions to screen out illegal immigrants, who usually obtain jobs by using false identities and are indistinguishable from legal workers.

A rough estimate by the Center for Immigration Studies suggests that the practical effect of the mandates would be that about 1 million illegal immigrants could obtain health insurance coverage through their employers.

The chief architect of a bill to increase taxes to pay for the Afghanistan war said he didn't believe adding troops would yield much benefit.

"The problem is you can have the best policy in the world but if you don't have the tools to implement it it isn't worth a bean bag,"
Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), the House Appropriations Committee chairman, told CNN on Sunday.
President Barack Obama is expected to announce on Tuesday he will add 30,000 troops to the war effort in Afghanistan to stem the rise of Taliban and to pursue al-Qaeda.

But Obey said supporting a corrupt Afghan government by adding troops amounted to a "fool's errand."

If policymakers believe continuing the war effort in Afghanistan was an important public policy, Obey added, then they should be willing to pay for it by raising taxes on higher income levels. The war would likely cost as much over the next decade as the effort to reforming the healthcare system, Obey said.

Iran's government will build 10 new sites to enrich uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday, a dramatic expansion of the country's nuclear program and one that is bound to fuel fears that it is attempting to produce a nuclear weapon.
Ahmadinejad told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that construction of at least five nuclear facilities is to begin within two months.

The surprise announcement came two days after a censure of Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency over the Islamic republic's refusal to stop enriching uranium, a key demand of Western powers. The 35-member board of the agency also criticized Iran's construction of a second enrichment plant in Qom, southwest of Tehran.

The Senate is set to begin debate on its health-overhaul bill Monday, with Democrats and Republicans planning to offer amendments on divisive subjects such as abortion and taxes that could hamper passage of the bill.

The debate is expected to last at least several weeks. Democrats would like to pass a bill by Christmas, but have yet to find a formula that can win 60 votes, the number required to conclude debate.

Complicating the situation, lawmakers from both parties are planning to introduce dozens of amendments, addressing issues from a government-run health-care plan to medical malpractice lawsuits to abortion and taxes. The aim isn't just to sh

Take the office of Ventura County treasurer-tax collector, for example.

As soon as Treasurer Larry Matheney announced he would not seek re-election next year and soon-to-be-termed-out Assemblywoman Audra Strickland announced she would seek to replace him, at least two county supervisors announced there ought to be qualifications for treasurer.

Yes, there ought to be qualifications for that office. And county supervisors have had since 1995 to ensure there are.

Fourteen years ago, after Orange County went bankrupt because the county treasurer gambled with public funds, the state Legislature passed a bill establishing professional and educational criteria for government treasurers. The law would apply only to those counties whose boards of supervisors approved it.

Several did. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors did not.