Washington in 5 minutes

INSURANCE

Obama curbs Medicare choices

The Obama administration raised the bar Monday for Medicare private insurance plans seeking to win the government’s seal of approval.

The administration announced new curbs on the health plans, popular with seniors, yet also criticized for marketing abuses and high costs to the government. The plans, offered by major insurers such as United Healthcare and Humana, flourished under Republicans but are seen by Democrats as undermining the traditional program.

Medicare officials said the changes include winnowing the number of versions of a plan that insurers can offer, protecting patients with chronic diseases from excessive co-payments, and banning a practice by some plans that can add even more to the costs of brand-name drugs.

“The overall theme here is to make sure there is less confusion and more transparency, so consumers can make well-informed choices,” said Jonathan Blum, who runs the Medicare division that oversees private plans.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Pollsters discount racism in primary

Polling that ended too early and other technical shortcomings - rather than undetected racial bias - are the likeliest reasons so many surveys incorrectly suggested Barack Obama would defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, a report concluded Monday.

Mrs. Clinton defeated Mr. Obama 39 percent to 36 percent in the Jan. 8, 2008, contest, even though many polls taken before the voting showed Mr. Obama with solid leads. Mrs. Clinton’s victory gave her a badly needed burst of momentum just five days after Mr. Obama won a surprising victory in the Iowa caucuses, the year’s first presidential contest.

Six months later, Mr. Obama captured the Democratic nomination and later the presidency.

The report, written by a panel of 11 professional pollsters and academics appointed by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, said polling may have ended too early to reflect last-minute shifts in New Hampshire voters’ attitudes. In the best-known example of an incident that may have had an impact, Mrs. Clinton’s eyes welled up a day before the voting as she vowed to fight on, no matter what happened.

In the days after the New Hampshire voting, some experts said the explanation might have been a reluctance by some white voters with negative views of black candidates to candidly tell pollsters for whom they would vote. That was discounted by the report’s authors.

WHITE HOUSE

Obama signs law named for Reeve

A new law named for “Superman” actor Christopher Reeve will coordinate research on paralysis and rehabilitation.

President Obama signed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act on Monday, along with a measure designed to expand wilderness protection. Lawmakers brought almost 170 bills for Mr. Obama to sign.

The Reeve measure is intended to improve coordination of research and treatment for paralyzed persons and others with disabilities. Mr. Reeve became an advocate for embryonic stem-cell research after he was paralyzed in a 1995 horseback riding accident in Virginia. Mr. Reeve died in 2004 of heart failure.

Mr. Obama said the new law “will connect the best minds and best practices from the best labs in the country and focus their endeavors through collaborative scientific research into the cure for paralysis, saving effort, money and, most importantly, time.”

The law designates the National Institutes of Health to coordinate research and work with other agencies and private groups to enhance paralysis research, rehabilitation and treatment programs.

COURTS

Cuba loses rum lawsuit

A federal judge dismissed a Cuban lawsuit Monday over the termination of U.S. trademark rights for its Havana Club rum, a victory for Bacardi’s effort to take over the brand name as its own in the United States.

The dispute dates back decades and is entangled in property seizures during the Cuban Revolution, the trade embargo with the island nation and U.S. trademark law.

Cuba’s Havana Club is not sold in the United States because of the trade embargo, but the company got a U.S. trademark for the name in 1976 for future opportunities in case the embargo is lifted. French spirits producer Pernod Ricard has partnered with Cuba’s communist government to sell Havana Club internationally and has successfully driven up sales around the world outside the U.S.

Tom Gjelten, author of a book on the dispute, said Bacardi shrewdly bolstered its case by getting Congress to pass a law in 1998 that prevents the registration or renewal of trademarks connected with companies nationalized by the Cuban government.

Cubaexport filed the lawsuit three years ago against the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control after the agency refused to allow renewal of its trademark. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth cited that law Monday in his decision to throw out Cubaexport’s case.

GAO

Wars, terror fight total $685.7 billion

Pentagon spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to fight terrorism elsewhere has reached $685.7 billion since 2001, a government agency said Monday.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said the Iraq war accounted for $533.5 billion in Defense Department spending obligations through December, while spending on operations in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and the Philippines totaled $124.1 billion. The remaining $28.1 billion was for operations to defend the U.S. mainland, the GAO said in a letter to Congress dated March 30.

The spending total equals about 85 percent of the $808 billion that Congress has appropriated for military operations in the global war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, the GAO said.

The $122.3 billion difference reflects multiyear contracts for procurement, military construction, research, development and other programs, the watchdog agency said.

GUANTANAMO BAY

Another detainee to be released

The Obama administration has agreed to release another Guantanamo detainee, but officials aren’t saying yet where he will go.

The Justice Department and lawyers for 38-year-old Aymen Saeed Batarfi have agreed to put his court case on hold while the government looks for a country to take him, according to papers filed in federal court in Washington.

Batarfi can restart his lawsuit if he is not delivered to a country acceptable to him within 30 days, according to the terms of the deal that still must be reviewed by a judge.

Batarfi’s lawyers say the Yemeni doctor was first held by U.S. forces at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in late 2001 and transferred to the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in April 2002. His lawyers say when Batarfi was captured he was on a humanitarian-aid mission and not assisting al Qaeda.

From wire dispatches and staff reports