By Meghna Chakrabarti (The Third Rail)

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation today releases an analysis it’s calling a “blueprint” for health care reform at the MBTA. The group offers six recommendations for bringing T health care benefits in line with state employees, and claims the reforms could be implemented as soon as July 1st, for a long term savings for the T of $1 billion over the next 20 years.

The Foundation says in a statement:

“Achieving immediate savings is essential as the T faces a staggering $160 million budget deficit in fiscal 2010 in part because of extraordinarily generous pension and health care benefits that far exceed the norm in the public and private sectors.”

How would they do it?
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By Liz Halloran (NPR)

President Obama used his first White House news conference Monday night to personalize the dire state of the nation’s economy, leveraging his popularity and the power of his office to urge Congress and the country to get behind his stimulus package. (news conference transcript)

President Obama walks down the Cross Hall to hold his first news conference, Monday, Feb. 9, 2009, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Despite his effort to get bipartisan support for his huge economic plan, the rewards have been meager: zero Republican votes in the House and three in the Senate. But Obama pledged to continue to try to “build up some trust over time.”

“We find ourselves in a rare moment where the citizens of our country and all countries are watching and waiting for us to lead,” Obama said during his prime-time appearance. “It is a responsibility that this generation did not ask for, but one that we must accept for the sake of our future and our children’s.”

In his hourlong televised appearance, the president touched on a range of issues, from the war in Afghanistan to steroid use in Major League Baseball. But the bulk of his time was spent laying out the nation’s economic challenges and his legislative prescription.

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