Washington (CNN) -- President Obama sealed a final victory on his signature domestic priority Tuesday, signing a sweeping package of changes to the newly enacted health care reform law. The so-called "fixes" bill -- approved over unanimous Republican opposition in both chambers of Congress -- significantly expands health insurance subsidies for lower- and middle-income families while watering down a tax on expensive health policies. The measure also overhauls the national college student loan system by shifting government funding for loans away from commercial banks to new education initiatives. Until now, commercial banks have received federal subsidies to provide student loans. The bill increases the overall cost of the health care reform legislation to $940 billion over the next 10 years, $65 billion more than the original health care bill Obama signed into law last week. What will health reform mean for you? The president emphasized the student loan reforms at a signing ceremony at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Virginia. The passage of the bill represents the end of a battle "pitting the interests of the banks [and] the financial institutions against the interests of students," Obama said. Video: Sebelius: Don't you dare Video: Dems face tough constituents RELATED TOPICS * Health Care Reform * Barack Obama * Mitch McConnell * Nancy Pelosi It fixed an old "sweetheart deal" by cutting out "unnecessary middlemen" in the administration of college loans, he asserted. "We stood with America's students." Changing the law, Obama said, will free up nearly $68 billion for both college loans and deficit reduction. As a result, the White House claimed, another $40 billion will be funneled into Pell Grants over the next decade. New borrowers taking out loans starting in July 2014 will be able to cap their student loan repayments at 10 percent of their discretionary income. The balance of their loans will be forgiven after 20 years if they keep up with their payments over time. Congressional Republicans bitterly criticized the Democrats' decision to attach the student loan overhaul to the health care bill, arguing in part that each measure deserved a separate debate. They have also argued the larger health care reform plan will lead to a government takeover of the private health insurance system, and charge that it will result in deep cuts in critical Medicare services while doing little to control skyrocketing medical costs. Democrats contend that the plan, which is estimated to extend health coverage to 32 million Americans, will reduce future federal budget deficits while giving consumers greater leverage with private insurers. Obama repeatedly slammed large insurance companies in the waning days of the health care debate, framing the politically polarized dispute as a face-off between the powerful corporations and ordinary Americans. The congressional wrangling over the plan, which included months of late-night votes and caustic floor debate, reflected the country's deep political divide over health care reform. Polls show the American public remains sharply divided over the issue. Forty-seven percent of Americans believe Congress should repeal the current reform law and replace it with new proposals, according to a March 25-28 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll. Fifty percent are opposed to doing so. Conservative activists -- including Tea Party protesters -- have continued to hold rallies against the legislation. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has promised that Republicans will use the slogan "repeal and replace" with regard to the health care law in the upcoming midterm elections. Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who is in charge of the 2010 Republican Senate campaign effort, outlined key GOP health care talking points Tuesday in a new memo, "Moving Forward," that was sent to several media outlets, including CNN. "It's critical that we remind people of the fact that it was Republicans who fought to force insurance companies to compete with one another over state lines for Americans' business," Cornyn wrote in the memo. "It was Republicans who fought to reform the junk lawsuits that raise medical costs and lower quality by forcing doctors to practice [defensive] 'medicine.' ... It was Republicans who proposed health care reforms that didn't cut Medicare by $500 billion and raise Americans' taxes by $400 million." Given Democratic control of the White House and Congress, outright repeal of the legislation is considered unlikely. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, questioned the Republicans' political strategy at a rally in San Francisco on Monday, noting it would require GOP candidates to favor ending popular benefits in the legislation -- such as preventing insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing medical conditions. "They want to reverse and repeal a prohibition on denying care on the basis of a pre-existing condition," Pelosi said Monday. "Can you imagine making that case?" Congress initially appeared poised to pass a compromise reform bill in January or February, shortly after both the House and Senate approved their own versions of the measure. However, the political landscape shifted in January when Republican Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts to fill the Senate seat formerly held by Democrat Ted Kennedy, the longtime champion of health care reform, who died last year. Brown's victory cost Senate Democrats the 60-seat majority they needed to overcome a Republican filibuster against a compromise health care bill. In response, Democrats devised a two-bill process in which the House passed the Senate version unchanged, making it law when signed last week by Obama, and also passed the accompanying "fixes" bill to change provisions in the Senate legislation that some House members opposed. The "fixes" bill was then proposed under reconciliation rules in the Senate that apply to bills involving the budget. Such bills need only a simple majority of 51 votes to pass. Specific provisions in the "fixes" bill include: • Closing the Medicare prescription drug "doughnut hole" by 2020. Under current law, Medicare stops covering drug costs after a plan and beneficiary have spent more than $2,830 on prescription drugs. It starts paying again after an individual's out-of-pocket expenses exceed $4,550. Senior citizens stuck in the doughnut hole this year will receive $250 rebates. • Raising the threshold for imposing the "Cadillac" tax on expensive health insurance plans to coverage valued at more than $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. The tax won't kick in until 2018. • Imposing an additional 3.8 percent Medicare payroll tax on investment income for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000 a year. • Eliminating the "Cornhusker Kickback," which gave Nebraska a special exemption from all new Medicaid expenses. The federal government will instead assist every state by picking up 100 percent of the costs of expanded Medicaid coverage between 2014 and 2016, and 90 percent starting in 2020. • Reducing the fine for individuals who fail to purchase coverage from $750 to $695. • Increasing the fine on large companies failing to provide health coverage for workers from $750 to $2,000 per employee.

by Andrew Gully Andrew Gully – 2 hrs 58 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States revealed Tuesday that Osama bin Laden was unarmed when US commandos shot him dead and said the Pakistani authorities had been kept in the dark because they might have tipped off the Al-Qaeda leader. Unusually frank remarks from the CIA chief betrayed the extent of the distrust between the United States and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed ally and key partner in the war against the resurgent Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. "It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission," Leon Panetta told Time magazine in an interview. "They might alert the targets." US officials, meanwhile, debated whether to scotch conspiracy theories by releasing a "gruesome" photo of the dead bin Laden, conscious that such an image would likely inflame strong passions in parts of the Muslim world. The White House gave the fullest account yet of the dramatic and momentous raid on Sunday night that killed the architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks and sparked scenes of relief and joy around the Western world. But officials did not clearly explain why bin Laden was shot dead and not captured, given that he was unarmed, fueling speculation that the elite Navy SEAL team had been ordered not to take him alive. "In the room with bin Laden, a women -- bin Laden's wife -- rushed the US assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed." Pressed about the so-called "kill mission," Carney said there had been significant resistance, a "volatile firefight," and insisted: "We were prepared to capture him if that was possible." The fact that, after a years-long manhunt, bin Laden turned up in an fortified compound in Abbottabad, home to the Pakistani equivalent of the West Point and Sandhurst military academies just two hours' drive north of Islamabad, has been greeted with incredulity. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari rejected as "baseless" charges that his country extends safe haven to extremists, but outraged US lawmakers are calling for billions of dollars in aid to be cut back or dropped entirely. The Obama administration last year said it would seek another $2 billion for Pakistan's military, on top of a five-year, $7.5 billion civilian package approved in 2009 aimed at weakening the allure of Islamic extremists. US analysts were scouring documents and computer files seized from bin Laden's hideout for evidence after top counter-terrorism official John Brennan said it was "inconceivable" he had not had some kind of support network. For a decade, Islamabad has been America's wary Afghan war ally, despite widespread public opposition and militant bomb attacks across the nuclear-armed country that have killed several thousand people. But Pakistan has never been fully trusted by either Kabul or Washington, which accuse its powerful military of fostering the Afghan Taliban it spawned during the 1980s resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Pakistani intelligence officials said the nation's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency had no idea bin Laden was holed up in Abbottabad, despite searching the compound in 2003 while it was still under construction. In a Washington Post opinion piece, Zardari acknowledged the US commandos carried out the raid without Pakistani collaboration -- but stressed Islamabad had initially helped to identify the Al-Qaeda courier who led them to bin Laden. US officials say DNA tests have proven conclusively that the man shot dead above the eye in Sunday's raid was indeed the Al-Qaeda leader who boasted about the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in the September 11 attacks. But they are also mulling whether to release a photo as proof. "It is fair to say it is a gruesome photograph... it could be inflammatory," Carney said. "We are reviewing the situation." In Sunday's operation, which lasted less than 40 minutes, Navy SEALs, arriving in two helicopters, stormed bin Laden's compound, which stood out from other properties because of its towering perimeter walls and heavy security. In addition to the bin Laden family, two other families resided there: one on the first floor of the main residence and another in a second building. "On the first floor of bin Laden's building, two Al-Qaeda couriers were killed along with a woman who was killed in cross-fire," Carney said. "Bin Laden and his family were found on the second and third floor of the building. There was concern that bin Laden would oppose the capture operation and indeed he resisted." After the firefight, the "non-combatants were moved to a safe location as the damaged helicopter was detonated," Carney said. "The team departed the scene via helicopter to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea."

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is pushing in his weekly radio and Internet address for Senate passage of his nearly $450 billion jobs bill as senators prepare to vote Tuesday on moving to debate on the measure. Obama also asked listeners to Saturday's address to tell their senators to support the bill, which he's been lobbying for aggressively against Republican opposition since unveiling it a month ago. With the economy listless and unemployment stuck above 9 percent moving into the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama said the bill "can help guard against another downturn here in America." "But if we don't act, the opposite will be true," the president said. "There will be fewer jobs and weaker growth. So any senator out there who's thinking about voting against this jobs bill needs to explain why they would oppose something that we know would improve our economic situation." Obama's jobs plan would reduce payroll taxes on workers and employers, extend benefits to long-term unemployed people, spend money on public works projects and help states and local governments keep teachers, police officers and firefighters on the job. He proposed paying for the plan mainly by closing tax loopholes for oil and gas companies and raising taxes on individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000. Those proposals were rejected by Senate Democrats who substituted a tax on millionaires, with Obama's agreement. But with Republicans opposed to much of the new spending in the bill and to tax hikes even on millionaires, the legislation stands no chance of getting through the Republican-controlled House in its current form, even if Senate Democrats were able to muster the necessary Republican support for Senate passage. Despite the opposition Obama intends to keep pushing for the plan in an effort to show the public that Republicans are standing in the way. "The proposals in this bill are steps we have to take if we want to build an economy that lasts; if we want to be able to compete with other countries for jobs that restore a sense of security for the middle-class," Obama said. "There are too many people hurting in this country for us to simply do nothing," he said. "The economy is too fragile for us to let politics get in the way of action." Despite opposition to the overall bill, individual elements of it may well get through Congress, particularly an extension and expansion of a payroll tax cut that took effect Jan. 1. Republicans used their weekly address to criticize the plan. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., called it "nothing but a rehash of the same failed ideas he's already tried, combined with a huge tax increase." "This is a cynical political ploy that's designed not to create jobs for struggling Americans, but to save the president's own job," Thune said. He also accused Obama of promulgating excessive regulations and too much red tape, to the detriment of business. "We're calling for a regulatory time-out, an affordable energy plan, broad-based tax reform including lower rates, and policies that provide the certainty and stability our economy desperately needs," Thune said.

Just days after President Obama ruffled some Democratic feathers for telling members of the black community to "stop complaining" and "put on your marching shoes," Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain - the only other African-American candidate in the presidential race - argued that voters were "over" Mr. Obama's stature as the first black president. "I think that they're over this first African American president thing," Cain said, of voters in the black community. "I think that is behind them." Speaking in an interview on Fox News Monday, Cain, who won this weekend's Florida straw poll despite polling nationally at only five percent, suggested that it was he who had the black vote locked down. "I believe, quite frankly, that my campaign, I will garner a minimum of a third of the black vote in this country and possibly more, especially after what the president did recently when he was addressing the Black Caucus," Cain said. "That didn't go over well with a lot of people in this country." In a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on Saturday, Mr. Obama urged members of the African-American community to stop griping and throw the full weight of their support behind him. "I expect all of you to march with me and press on," Mr. Obama told the CBC. "Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on." CBC member Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., called Mr. Obama's remarks "curious" and said she wondered who Mr. Obama had in mind when he made the comments. "I don't know who he was talking to because we're certainly not complaining," Waters said Monday on CBS' "Early Show." "We're working. We support him, and we're protecting that base because we want people to be enthusiastic about him when that election rolls around." "Some of his words were not, I think, appropriate and surprised me a little bit," she said." "I was curious about it." According to the Labor Department, the unemployment rate among African Americans rose to 16.7 percent in August -- the highest rate since 1984 -- even as the jobless rate for whites fell to 8 percent. Overall, the unemployment rate was just 9.1 percent. And among black youth, the unemployment rate was 46.5 percent in August, according to the government. In an interview with BET on Monday, Mr. Obama argued that targeting one community for aid was not "how America works" and disputed the notion that he wasn't doing anything to help struggling African Americans - or that black voters were disproportionately losing faith in him. "That is not what people are saying," the president said, when it was suggested that, "You won't even say, 'Look, I am going to help you,'" to a hypothetical black voter struggling to get by. "Emmett, that is not -- first of all, that is not what people are saying," Obama said to BET host Emmett Miller. "What people are saying all across the country is we are hurting and we've been hurting for a long time. And the question is how can we make sure the economy is working for every single person?" Mr. Obama also argued that it was only "a handful of African Americans" who have criticized his efforts toward the black community. "The other thing I want to make sure you don't just kind of slip in there is this notion that African American leaders of late have been critical," he told Miller. "There have been a handful of African Americans who have been critical. They were critical when I was running for president. There's always going to be somebody who is critical of the president of the United States." "What has always made this country great is the belief that everybody has got a chance," he added. "Regardless of race, regardless of creed." Recent polls suggest the existence of some cracks in the black community's support for Mr. Obama, although his support has dipped in all demographics. While the president still generally polls in the 80th percentile on favorability among blacks, a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that the strength of that support appears to have receded: In April, 83 percent of African Americans said they had "strongly favorable" views of Obama; by September, that number had dropped to 58 percent. Cain argued that Mr. Obama's economic record would help him clinch the black vote. "Because the unemployment rate for black people is nearly 17 percent, instead of the 9 percent, they're looking for something that's going to boost this economy," Cain said. "That's what's going to peel off the black vote: results, not rhetoric."