Gov. O’Malley: Health Care Reform ‘Good for States’; Will Mean Paying More to Save in Long Run

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: With Republican governors warning that President Obama’s health care plan will foist new costs on states, a leading Democratic governor is pushing back, arguing that health care reform will help states shoulder growing health costs in the long run.

“In fact, if we do not change the status quo, there is no way that any state in the union is going to be able to afford the constantly escalating 7, 8, 9 percent annual increases,” Gov. Martin O’Malley, D-Md., said today on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line.”

“We do not mind, for example — I would not mind as governor as I looked at the status quo, which would add $3.6 billion to our expenses for health care both on the Medicaid and employer’s side, if instead we only had to pay a billion additional over the next five years. One would have to say that that’s a step in the right direction. So really a lot of this is about cost avoidance.”

“We have to pay a little bit more in order to realize the long-term savings and bring down the cost curve. And that’s what the Obama administration is doing, and I’m very much encouraged by the direction in which it’s going,” O’Malley said.

“The truth of the matter is that both the Senate versions and the House versions are actually moving to something that’s good for states,” he added.

He also said “thank God” President Obama pressed to pass the stimulus package, arguing that the current unemployment race would be much worse without it.

“None of us likes 9.8 percent unemployment, but I will betcha that it would have been more like 16 or 17 percent had President Obama not acted,” he said. “So we are far better off because of the recovery and reinvestment dollars, despite all the people saying that we could not possibly spend it or apply it the right way. We are applying it. And the other good news is these dollars are creating new jobs that are actually going to benefit the economy for many years into the future, and it absolutely had to be done otherwise we would have headed into a depression.”

O’Malley, the vice chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, also said he would “guarantee” Democratic victories in the 2009 gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey. He said he doesn’t believe national Democrats or President Obama will be a drag on Democrats running for governor in 2009 or 2010.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of running away [from] or running to — I think it’s a matter of governing well,” O’Malley said. “People in their chief executives, especially when we’re facing unemployment and home disclosures, they want men and women that are going to make the tough decisions regardless of politics. And so governing well is really the best political advice that any of us incumbents had, and it’s the best advice that we can give to those that are challenging.”

ClickHERE tosee the full interview with Gov. Martin O’Malley.

We also chatted with veteran GOP pollster Frank Luntz about his new book, “What Americans Really Want…Really.” Watch that interview HERE.

GOP Lawmakers: Life is Good At Guantanamo Bay

ABC News’ Jennifer Parker reports: Movies, books, newspapers, Sudoku puzzles and high-quality health care. These are just some of the privileges detainees at Guantanamo Bay are receiving, according to recent claims by some Republican lawmakers.

At a news conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., argued the 240 detainees being held at a U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay are being treated well.

“Anyone, any detainee over 55 has an opportunity to have a colonoscopy,” Inhofe told reporters, “Now none of them take ’em up on it because once they explain what it is none of them want to do it. but nonetheless its an opportunity that they have.”

Inhofe has long argued detainees at Guantanamo Bay are treated well, filming this YouTube video while leading a congressional delegation to the detention facility in February.

“It just blows your mind when you stop and think about the way that they are, are treat people down here, much better than our national, our federal prison system,” Inhofe said in the video.

Inhofe is far from the first lawmaker to argue the detainees — held at the detention facility without trial — are being treated well.

“I was actually very surprised at the level of really good treatment that all of those detainees are receiving,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told ABC News’Rick Klein on “Top Line” Monday.

“There’s 240 of them there. They get Al Jazeera television, they get USA Today, they have books, a library, teachers, books of Sudoku puzzles to work on. I was fascinated at the level even of medical care. I saw the hospital there. My background is in medicine. I’m an orthopedic surgeon. They have one health care worker for every two detainees, an incredible hospital with an operating room with a quality of care that is better than many people get in the United States,” Barrasso said.

Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., recently painted an idyllic picture of the detention facility.

“It is a first-class, first-rate facility that meets any kind of international standard that you could think of,” Ensign said of Guantanamo Bay, arguing prisoners exercise regularly, have access to Arabic and U.S. newspapers, are given medical treatment from the American Red Cross and can can watch movies.
Ensign also said the food served at to detainees is better than what was served to him and fellow senators.

His comments were remincent of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who singled out the lemon-baked fish and orange-glazed chicken served to detainees on what he said was a typical Sunday night dinner during a news conference in 2005. After passing out menus to reporters, Hunter called the food “gourmet fare.”

“We treat them very well,” Hunter said. “They have never eaten better.”

Positive arguments about detainee treatment have often come from Republican lawmakers who are opposed to closing the military detention facility.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., has also made the case that the facility is well run and prisoners are treated well.

“I don’t know of another facility anywhere in the United States … that is comparable,” Brownback said.

However the American Civil Liberties Union argues that nothing justifies holding hundreds of detainees, some of them since 2002.

“Even if the food has improved and the torture tactics have stopped, they are still being held against their will, some of them for the last seven years without charge” said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel for the ACLU, who last visited Guantanamo Bay in November.

Early reports by The International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations charged that American military personnel have intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on Guantanamo Bay prisoners, including severe sleep deprivation, forced nudity, forced stress positions, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, 20-hour interrogations, physical force, prolonged sensory over-stimulation and threats with military dogs.

Government reports and Pentagon officials have also confirmed the abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Several former Guantanamo Bay prisoners who have been released have sued top Pentagon officials, alleging they were subjected to abuse akin to torture.

Defense attorneys for the detainees have also complained about the isolation of some prisoners and the force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike.

President Barack Obama signed an executive order 48 hours after taking office prohibiting the CIA from using “coercive” interrogation techniques not allowed in the Army Field Manual, including waterboarding.

“Anybody detained by the Untied States, for now, is going to be … any interrogations taking place are going to have to abide by the Army Field Manual,” Obama said, pledging to shut down Guantanamo Bay within a year.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who visited Guantanamo Bay in February, said the facility is being well run now.

“I did not witness any mistreatment of prisoners. I think, to the contrary, what I saw was a very conscious attempt by these guards to conduct themselves in an appropriate way,” Holder said. “It does not in any way decrease our determination to close the facility, even though as I said it is being well-run now.”

Inhofe has introduced legislation that would prevent detainees from being relocated anywhere on U.S. soil.

The Democratic-led Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to block the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States, denying President Barack the $80-million he sought to close the prison by next January.

“Even if it’s true that it’s better than it had been, there is nothing that can make up for holding someone for this long against their will,” Anders said. “A lot of them have not been charged withy crime and won’t be charged and they have been locked up, with the key essentially thrown away.”

ABC News’ Z. Byron Wolf and Rick Klein contributed to this report.