Obama will ease restraints on states' health insurance programs for children

Within days of taking office, President-elect Barack Obama will rescind a Bush administration policy that has impeded state efforts to provide health insurance to children from low- and middle-income families, aides and advisers announced. The policy is one of many that the new administration hopes to change or withdraw in its first weeks in office. Obama has said, for example, that he objects to a Bush administration rule that grants sweeping new protections to health workers who refuse to provide care because of their "religious beliefs or moral convictions."