Obama Meeting With Health Industry On Lowering Costs
President Obama is meeting today with drug companies, insurance companies, hospital executives and doctors to work on an industry initiative to decrease health care costs by $2 trillion over 10 years. The New York Times points out that the government wouldn't necessarily have a direct way to hold industry to these promises, but that the industry itself is undertaking this initiative in order to head off direct price constraints from being imposed by the government.

Obama's Day Ahead
President Obama will be meeting with health care reform stakeholders at 11:30 a.m. ET in the Roosevelt Room. At 12:30 p.m. ET, he will deliver remarks from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, on reforming the health care system and reducing costs. At 2 p.m. ET, he will welcome the University of North Carolina men's basketball team an the South Portico.

No Biden Public Events Today
Vice President Biden is in Washington today, and will attend the President's regular morning meetings. He will spend the rest of the day in private meetings, and does not have any scheduled public events.

Biden Takes Key Role In SCOTUS Search
The Washington Post reports that Vice President Biden has become a central figure in the Obama Administration's search for a Supreme Court nominee. "The president is basically taking advantage of my experiences by asking me nuanced questions about both individuals and timing," Biden explained. "We've gone through specific nominees, which we're burrowing in on."

Romer Predicts Continued Increases In Unemployment
Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said yesterday that she expects the unemployment rate to continue to rise until 2010, due to the economy needing to grow at 2.5% in order to produce any gains in employment. She also said long-term changes in behavior would be made: "The chance that consumers are ever going to go back to their high-spending ways is not very plausible, nor do I think they should."

Orszag Likens Obama's Cost-Cutting To Broken-Windows Theory
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has posted a new op-ed piece with USA Today, advocating on behalf of President Obama's proposed cost-cutting measures in the face of media criticism that they are insufficient, token gestures. "Just like broken windows have been shown to increase crime," Orszag writes, "perpetuating inefficient programs undermines confidence in government and is a poor use of taxpayers' money."

Crist Expected To Declare Senate Bid Tuesday
Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) is expected to announce tomorrow that he is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Mel Martinez. Crist will start out as the immediate frontrunner, though he faces a primary challenge from former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, who will likely attack Crist from the right on Crist's support for the stimulus bill, and the Democrats will also be ready to keep on fighting in this perennial swing state.

Stephanopoulos: Edwards Staffers Planned To Sabotage Him
George Stephanopoulos reports that when some John Edwards campaign staffers began to think in late 2007 that the rumors of his affair were true, they planned a "Doomsday Scenario" to sabotage him: "They said they were Democrats first, and if it looked like Edwards was going to become the nominee, they were going to bring down the campaign."