Blogger Weighs Health Care Plans, Flunks McCain

Xi Jinping, China's next president, to meet with Obama

(NEWSER) - The man slated to be China's next president began his US tour today, meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office before having lunch with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Biden will serve as Xi Jinping's host in Washington, the New York Times reports. Other stops on the agenda: a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce, and a high-level trip to the Pentagon, where he'll get an honor guard salute and meet with Leon Panetta and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. More»

And Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin is still pretty scary: reactions

(NEWSER) - If you thought Julianne Moore's Sarah Palin was terrifying in the first Game Change teaser , wait until you see her in the full trailer, where she utters lines such as, "We have to win this thing. I so don’t want to go back to Alaska." Watch below, then read on for some reactions:

• This will clearly be "a Frankenstein-esque story about McCain’s staffers coming to regret the choice they made in bringing a little-known governor into the limelight," writes Jon Bershad at Mediaite . "The full trailer ... gives us even more famous actors getting their turn to stare in horror at the 'monster' they’ve created."

Catholic organization health plans will have to pay

(NEWSER) - Catholic leaders are blasting the Obama administration's new decision to require religious organization's health plans to cover workers' contraceptives. Several priests railed against the move from the pulpit at Sunday Mass. "Moral" exemptions for contraceptive coverage in health plans exist for churches and other houses of worship, but the break will not be extended to places like Catholic schools or hospitals, reports the Wall Street Journal. President Obama phoned New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan last week to tell him of the decision. Dolan has called it an "unconscionable" attack on religious freedom. More»

HBO debuts first teaser

(NEWSER) - For all of you who have spent the past nine months wondering how Julianne Moore’s Sarah Palin impersonation will stack up against Tina Fey’s , you finally have your answer. HBO debuted its first teaser trailer for Game Change, the film due in March that's based on the Mark Halperin-John Heilemann book about the 2008 presidential election. Neither Ed Harris as John McCain nor Woody Harrelson as top adviser Steve Schmidt sound much like their real-life counterparts, notes David Jackson in USA Today , but Moore’s Palin is spot-on: Numerous publications including People , New York , the Huffington Post , and Jezebel are fairly impressed. More»

Coverage up among 19- to 25-year-olds, now eligible for parents' insurance

(NEWSER) - Roughly 2.5 million people between the ages of 19 and 25 have gained health insurance since President Obama signed his health care reform bill, more than double the 1 million the White House had been expecting, according to a new administration analysis. The bump is almost entirely due to a provision in a law that allows young people to remain on their parents' coverage until age 26. More»