Senator Sanders

Health Care Sen. Bernie Sanders says he’s frustrated by technical problems that have plagued the federal health exchange but he doesn’t want to make major alterations at this time. “What I think we need to do is take a look in the next several weeks to see the kind of progress that’s being made,” Sanders told Vermont Public Radio. “And if progress is not being made in a sufficient way we can address that.” Sanders said it’s important to remember that the Affordable Care Act already has had “some successes,” including letting people under 26 years old stay with their parents’ insurance plans and ending discrimination against women. LINK

Obama Nominates Market Regulator President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he will nominate Treasury Department official Timothy Massad to be chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the regulatory agency charged with policing financial markets that played a role in the 2008 financial crisis. Sen. Sanders said he would press Massad about the commission’s efforts to restrict speculation in commodities markets, Politico reported. “Will Mr. Massad make sure that the price of heating oil and gasoline is based on the fundamentals of supply and demand and not Wall Street greed?” Sanders asked, according to Bloomberg. LINK, LINK

Democrats Target Some Tax Loopholes An internal document shows Democrats preparing to target tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations as part of congressional budget conference negotiations, but does not confront tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry, Common Dreams reported. Progressives like Sen. Sanders have called for an “end [to] tax breaks and subsidies for oil, gas and coal companies to reduce the deficit by more than $113 billion over the next 10 years,” but the document indicates that preserving these tax breaks continues to have widespread bipartisan support. LINK

Veterans Day UVM held a Veterans Day Commemoration to honor student and alumni veterans of the university. Sen. Sanders and others spoke at the event. UVM's celebration was one of many around Vermont. Sanders had spoken at Taylor Park in St. Albans earlier that morning and sent a representative to speak on his behalf at an annual ceremony in Burlington's Battery Park, the Burlington Free Press reported.

White House ’16 Liberal leaders want Hillary Clinton to face a Democratic primary challenge in 2016 if she decides to run for president. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow cited Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Sanders as the “pillars” of what she called “Democratic A-listers.” John Nichols at The Nation blogged about potential Clinton challengers. “Some have even suggested … Sanders (though he proudly sits as an independent).”  On WCAX-TV, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said “it's a good thing to have lots of kinds of people out there who can make articulate points about things that are right and wrong.” At change.org, Michael Trudeau posted a petition urging Sanders to become the Green Party nominee. LINK, LINK, LINK, VIDEO, VIDEO

World

Struggle to Reach Victims in Philippines Tens of thousands of Philippine typhoon victims remain destitute in flooded coastal communities four days after Typhoon Haiyan blew away their homes and livelihoods, where they have been unable to obtain assistance from aid organizations and nations, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK

Diplomacy Is Primary Path in Iran After failing to close a landmark nuclear deal with Iran on Sunday in Geneva, Secretary of State John Kerry is defending the diplomacy that led to the near miss in the face of critics, The New York Times reported. “The time to oppose [diplomacy] is when you see what it is,” he said, “not to oppose the effort to find out what is possible.” LINK

Economists Express Doubts on China Reform Economists have raised questions about whether China has the political will to reform and reinvigorate its slowing economy by reducing traditional state dominance, The Wall Street Journal reported. After a four-day meeting, Communist Party leaders endorsed a broad policy platform that called for a “decisive” role for markets and greater rights for its vast rural population. LINK

National

HealthCare.gov Fewer than 50,000 had successfully enrolled in private insurance plans as of last week, according to internal government data, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.S. government is contacting citizens this week asking them to return to HealthCare.gov and sign-up through a “series of e-mails in waves” to avoid overwhelming the website, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. LINK, LINK

Senate Republicans Block Another Judge Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked the nomination of Nina Pillard to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the second such nominee to that court denied in the past two weeks. On a 56 to 41 roll call, Pillard fell four short of the threshold to clear a GOP filibuster; just two Republicans supported ending debate to move to a final vote on her nomination, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Homeless Veterans The Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday announced a nearly $14 million surge in funding for programs to assist homeless veterans. The agency approved nearly $9 million in grants for transportation and renovated housing for homeless veterans, in addition to roughly $5 million to boost services for special populations such as women, the elderly and those who are chronically or mentally ill, according to The Washington Post. LINK

Ethanol Farmers initially rushed to find new places to plant corn to produce ethanol, which wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found. The consequences are so severe that some environmentalists and many scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad environmental policy. LINK

Vermont

Vermont Health Care Troubles Six weeks into the rollout of President Obama’s new health care law, some of the online insurance exchanges run by states are continuing to have serious technological problems, often mirroring the issues plaguing the much larger federal exchange. In Vermont, customers are unable to pay for the plans they choose because of technical problems. In Hawaii, the site was not available to customers until mid-October and users continue to report problems. Maryland’s exchange portal has had so many issues, including slowness and frequent error messages, that the exchange board decided last week to let insurers handle payments directly for now, The New York Times reported. LINK 

Hospitals Announce Health Connect Partnership Gov. Peter Shumlin, Vermont Association of Hospitals and Systems and other hospitals announced a partnership to promote and expand participation in Vermont Health Connect Tuesday, My Champlain Valley reported. Eighteen hospitals have agreed to participate.  LINK

Tracking Diseases In its effort to track Eastern Equine Encephalitis across Vermont, the Department of Health has been out in teams collecting blood samples from deer killed and asking hunters to point out on a map where they shot the deer, Vermont Public Radio reported. LINK

$1.6 Million Settlement for Bogus Phone Charges Vermont has settled two lawsuits that will refund more than $900,000 to 12,500 residents in the state’s fight against third-party charges added to phone bills, sometimes without the consumer authorizing them, the Burlington Free Press reported. LINK