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More than 50% of Americans say they are worse off now under Obama. According to a new Bloomberg poll, a majority of Americans believes that they are worse off, today, under Obama than they were two years ago, when Obama had just been elected. Giving the president another headache that is sure to compound his political problems is the number of Americans who responded that they thought the US was headed in the wrong direction. 66% of all Americans think that the US is right now headed in the wrong direction. Another gloomy note for the president is that in...

Record number of Californians report being financially worse off. Most do not expect improvement next year. - A record number of Californians (63%) report being financially worse off than they were a year ago. In no previous Field Poll survey in nearly fifty years of polling – covering several previous economic recession periods – has more than 50% described their financial condition so negatively. In addition, most voters foresee no improvement in their personal finances next year. There has also been a deterioration in Californians' appraisal of the state's economy. At present 86% of voters feel California is in bad...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - With 6.6 million Californians uninsured and costs soaring, state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi called Wednesday for a series of reforms to save the health care system from what he called a "death spiral." Garamendi released a 73-page report entitled "Priced Out: Health Care in California" that, among other things, showed the average health insurance premium in the state increased 61 percent between 2000 and 2004. He said Californians are paying more for health insurance but getting less as employers offer fewer benefits or pass on a greater share of costs to workers. The increasing cost "is...

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The costs of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) have outweighed the benefits of removing Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told a Danish newspaper. "It's positive that Saddam and his bloody regime is gone, but when one weighs the costs, it's clearly the negative aspects that dominate," Blix told daily Jyllands-Posten in an interview. The Swedish diplomat has criticized the United States and Britain for going to war without U.N. approval rather than allowing his team to continue its hunt for banned weapons. In the interview, Blix said...