Daily Rounds: Obama Fights Back; Practice Babies; Getting Kids To Play

The President Makes it Official: He'll Veto Health Reform Repeal In a preliminary analysis of H.R. 2, the Congressional Budget Office found that repealing the law would increase the deficit by $230 billion in the first decade and roughly one-half of one percent of GDP, or over a trillion dollars, in the second decade; increase the number of uninsured Americans by 32 million; impose higher premiums on large firms; and cause consumers who buy coverage in the individual market to pay more out of pocket for fewer benefits. (content.govdelivery.com)

'Practice Babies': An Outdated Practice, Rediscovered : NPR From 1919 to 1969, college home economics programs around the country had so-called practice houses or practice apartments where young women learned the domestic arts: cooking, cleaning, running a household.
The college students learned mothering skills by caring for "practice babies" — infants lent by local orphanages to live at the school. (npr.org)

The Movement to Restore Children’s Play Gains Momentum - NYTimes.com For several years, studies and statistics have been mounting that suggest the culture of play in the United States is vanishing. Children spend far too much time in front of a screen, educators and parents lament — 7 hours 38 minutes a day on average, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation last year. And only one in five children live within walking distance (a half-mile) of a park or playground, according to a 2010 report by the federal Centers for Disease Control, making them even less inclined to frolic outdoors. Behind the numbers is adult behavior as well as children’s: Parents furiously tapping on their BlackBerrys in the living room, too stressed by work demands to tolerate noisy games in the background. (nytimes.com)