Idaho hiker's body found after search hampered by government shutdown

By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho | Thu Oct 24, 2013 2:16am EDT

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - The body of a missing hiker has been recovered at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in central Idaho after a month-long search hampered by the recent U.S. government shutdown.

The remains of Jodean Elliott-Blakeslee, 63, were spotted on Tuesday evening during a helicopter search of the vast lava fields at the National Park Service site where she and her hiking partner, Amelia Linkert, were reported missing on September 24.

Searchers last month found Linkert dead from exposure. An Idaho coroner is determining how Elliott-Blakeslee perished, park officials said.

At its height, the search for the Boise-based physician drew helicopters, dog teams and as many 100 individuals from other U.S. parks, but those efforts were scaled back in part because of a congressional budget impasse that halted government operations on October 1. The government reopened last week after Congress passed a temporary spending measure that President Barack Obama signed into law.

Ted Stout and several other Craters of the Moon workers furloughed during the shutdown nevertheless continued to search for Elliott-Blakeslee across the Idaho park's 750,000 acres of volcanic rifts, cinder cones and underground tunnels carved by ancient lava flows.

"We can't let her down now. This needs to continue," Stout, the park's chief of interpretation and education, said the day after he and park officials were laid off.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Editing by Steve Gorman and Lisa Shumaker)

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Obama: Government shutdown won't delay healthcare exchange launch

By Lewis Krauskopf

Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:21pm EDT

n">(Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday that the new state insurance exchanges created by his healthcare reform law will launch as scheduled on Tuesday even if the federal government shuts down due to Republican efforts to defund Obamacare.

The new online health exchanges at the heart of Obama's Affordable Care Act are set to open for enrollment on October 1 after years of political attack, offering subsidized health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. Conservative lawmakers in Congress are pushing to cut out spending for the healthcare law at the threat of shutting down the government on the same day.

"On Tuesday, about 40 million more Americans will be able to finally buy quality affordable healthcare just like anybody else," Obama said in a speech addressing the potential for a shutdown.

"Those marketplaces will be open for business on Tuesday, no matter what, even if there's a government shutdown. That's a done deal."

Obama's statement confirmed speculation that the exchanges would operate regardless of Congress' actions.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department, the branch of the government overseeing the law's implementation, released its contingency plan on Friday in the event of a potential shutdown.

The department's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services branch "would continue large portions of ACA activities," according to a document on its Website.

That includes coordination between the Medicaid program for low-income Americans and the insurance marketplaces. Insurance rate reviews and assessments of what portion of premium revenue insurance companies spend on medical services would also continue.

The document said that certain funding for healthcare reform was mandatory and "not affected by a hiatus in annual appropriations," such as the ACA Mandatory Program Management and the ACA Implementation Fund.

The Medicare program for the elderly would also "continue largely without disruption," in the short term. States would also have funding for Medicaid.

Regarding other HHS agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would continue "minimal support" in the United States and abroad to respond to outbreak investigations, processing lab samples and maintaining an emergency operations center.

The Food and Drug Administration would continue activities to handle emergencies such as high-risk recalls, but "will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition, and cosmetics activities."

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Ken Wills)

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