Health care reform news: 

►  From AP -- Obama prods Congress to pass health-care bill quickly -- President Barack Obama is prodding House and Senate Democrats to get him a final health care bill as soon as possible, encouraging them to bypass the usual negotiations between the two chambers in the interest of speed. Obama himself will take a hands-on role, convening another meeting with congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday. Pelosi, along with four other Democratic committee chairs, are expected to attend. The aim is to get a final bill to Obama's desk before the State of the Union address sometime in early February.

►  In today's NY Times -- House Democrats to pursue health bill changes -- House Democrats say they can live without the public option given sufficient guarantees that other steps would be taken to increase options for consumers and to avoid abuses by private insurance companies.

►  At AFL-CIO Now -- Health insurer CEO's $73 million bonus covers a lot of co-pays -- Millions of working families are struggling to pay the ever-rising costs of health care or going without, and they await what Congress will do with health care reform. But one person who won’t have to worry is H. Edward Hanway, who just retired as CIGNA's CEO. He just got a $73 million retirement bonus to add to his $12 million compensation in 2009.

Local news:

►  In today's Everett Herald -- Boeing maybe done with local layoffs -- Boeing slashed about half as many positions last year as it had hoped, but the bulk of the jobs cut were in this state. This could be a good sign for the Puget Sound region as the company looks for continued cuts this year in its operations around the world. 

►  At FlightGlobal -- Dreamliner production challenges lie ahead -- Boeing continues to evolve its production system while tackling the challenges that lie ahead for the base of global suppliers.

►  From AP -- Let inmates vote, federal judges say -- Incarcerated felons should be allowed to vote in Washington to ensure that racial minorities are protected under the Voting Rights Act, a federal appeals court has ruled, overturning the 2000 ruling of a district judge in Spokane. 

►  In today's Tri-City Herald -- Franklin County commissioners take pay raise -- While they cut 15 staff positions from this year’s budget, they will be taking $2,000 annual raises themselves.

►  In today's Tri-City Herald -- High-paying jobs help whole community (editorial) -- This is a great place to work, live and play. Those are some of the things that attract businesses to our area.

Legislative news:

►  In today's NY Times -- New year but no relief for strapped states -- For many states, the new year spells the end to accounting maneuvers, one-off solutions, tax increases and service cuts that were as deep as lawmakers thought they could bear. And governors and state legislators confront this situation in an election year in which many of their jobs are in play.

►  At Publicola -- Seattle legislators head to Olympia with policy proposals -- Given the $2.6 billion state budget deficit, it’s not surprising that legislators are focusing on revenue-raising legislation , but there is some non-budget legislation being introduced as well.

►  In today's -- State budget cuts may end vision benefits -- Washington’s low-income vision program is offered through Medicaid. Federal money supplies about 60% of the program’s $3.7 million budget, but if the state can’t come up with its 40%, the federal match goes away.

►  In today's News Tribune -- Workers' comp audit should set of alarms (editorial) -- Expect calls to reform our workers' compensation system to intensify in the wake of a state audit suggesting that L&I lowballed the shortfall in one of its accounts. Businesses have long complained that Washington’s program is one of the most generous -- and expensive -- in the nation. It’s also looking increasingly unsustainable. Lawmakers need to take a close look at the health of the fund and consider whether the current system is too gold-plated.

►  In today's Spokesman-Review -- Insurance reform would give options to workers (editorial) -- A number of bills will be introduced to reform various aspects of the state workers' compensation system. One important measure will be a proposal to allow the so-called settlement option in the case of workers whose work-related disabilities are total and permanent. (The goal of these "compromise-and-release" settlements is to pay injured workers less than what they are due. many injured workers lose all of their income during what's often an extended claims-and-appeal process. When employers finally dangle a big check like that, they are counting on the injured worker to make a decision that's against their long-term best interest. It also creates an incentive for employers to appeal and drag the process out in order to increase the injured workers' level of desperation.)

►  In the Seattle Times -- Find budget solutions that protect Washington's values (guest column by Republicans Rob McKenna, Sam Reed, Mike Hewitt and Richard DeBolt) -- State lawmakers can approve another all-cuts no-new-taxes budget, as they did in 2009. Steps to accomplish this should include eliminating the state's monopoly on liquor sales, increasing state employee's share of their health-insurance premiums from 12% to 20% plus eliminating their step pay increases. We should also privatize our state-run workers' compensation system.

San Francisco hotel dispute:

►  In today's SF Chronicle -- Hilton San Francisco is target of union boycott -- Hotel workers begin a boycott of the Hilton San Francisco with an 800-person march and a 160-person sit-in blocking the hotel lobby, which resulted in dozens of arrests.

►  At Politico -- In labor civil war, one side downsizes -- UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm says his rivals at Workers United are falling apart and being absorbed into the SEIU. Says Wilhelm: "WU’s hoped-for identity as the worthy offspring of three of America’s iconic unions, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, and the Textile Workers Union, is in tatters. In choosing this suicidal path, (Bruce) Raynor is destroying the heritage and identity of these great unions."

National news:

►  At ZDNet -- H-1B visas, the AFL-CIO and the need for change -- A new AFL-CIO report, Gaming the System, looks at the effect of U.S. visa policies, especially around H-1B visas. Some of its points are pretty hard to dispute: 1) It’s hard to argue that job shortages exist when wages have failed to rise in many professions. 2) Visa holders are getting taken advantage of by individuals and companies on both sides of the transaction. 3) Businesses that argued just a few years ago that the U.S. would face a shortage of skilled graduates in science, technology, math and engineering disciplines never took into account that other technologies would permit offshore workers to do many of the tasks previously performed by American workers. 

►  From AFL-CIO Now -- Space: the final frontier... for outsourcing -- With the end of the shuttle program, some 7,000 IBEW members at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, half its workforce, face layoffs. Yet the United States is outsourcing manned space flight to Russia, depending upon that country’s 40-year-old Soyuz spacecraft to reach the International Space Station.

►  From AP -- 3 Democrats -- 2 senators and 1 governor -- to retire -- Taken together, the decisions by Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota as well as Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter caused another bout of heartburn for Democrats struggling to defend themselves in a sour political environment for incumbents, particularly the party in charge.

►  At AFL-CIO Now -- Linda Chavez-Thompson running for Lt. Governor of Texas -- The “Draft Linda” movement swept through Texas, pulling the much-admired former AFL-CIO executive vice president out of semi-retirement and onto the Democratic Party slate for state leadership. 

►  In today's LA Times -- Business lobbying groups taking different tack in D.C. -- The National Restaurant Association and others have moved toward better relations with Democrats -- and are getting a seat at the decision-making table on healthcare reform and other issues.

►  In today's NY Times -- Immigration's new year (editorial) -- America needs to shut the path to illegal entry and employment, while opening more rational routes to legal immigration.

►  In today's NY Times -- Once-defiant UAW local now focuses on GM's success -- Local 1112, long a thorn in GM's side, is now working to ensure its success and protect members’ jobs.