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Articles by Paige Winfield Cunningham

"We are excited about being able to offer people better Medicare at less cost. That just makes sense," said Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Associated Press)

Medicare premiums to rise next year

Medicare premiums for most seniors will rise slightly next year after a three-year freeze that was pegged to stagnant Social Security benefits.

October 27, 2011

States struggle to pay for Medicaid

Infused with billions of extra Medicaid dollars from President Obama's economic stimulus package, states have largely burned through the aid and are scrounging for a way to support programs bloated by the sluggish economy.

October 27, 2011
Rep. Steve King, one of the most fiery opponents of President Obama's "executive amnesty" for illegal immigrants, backed away from his previous calls for impeachment. "I don't want to do the 'I' word. Nobody wants to throw the nation into that kind of turmoil," the Iowa Republican told CNN immediately following Mr. Obama's executive action. (Associated Press)

Bottom-line issues stall GOP efforts to pull back health law

Republicans scored historic gains in last year's elections in part on their pledge to scrap the new health care law — but their passion for repeal has dimmed in the face of a split Congress and the difficulties of untangling the complex legislation.

October 25, 2011
Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that he wants to end federal student loans, calling it a failed program that has put students in debt when there are no jobs and when the quality of education has deteriorated. As president, he said he would eliminate five federal agencies. (NBC via Associated Press)

Paul would ax five agencies, hits focus on Romney’s lawn

Touting his own jobs plan to eliminate five Cabinet agencies and cut a trillion dollars from the budget, presidential candidate Ron Paul complained of trivial infighting between his GOP rivals at a time when the nation faces monumental challenges he thinks would be solved by a virtual government upheaval.

October 23, 2011

Social Security benefits to increase in 2012

Seniors will receive a 3.6 percent Social Security cost-of-living increase next year, the first since 2009, signaling that consumer prices are rebounding even as the economy remains sluggish and unemployment is high.

October 19, 2011
** FILE ** Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican (Associated Press)

Obama fights for embattled CLASS law

President Obama is clinging fiercely to a key part of his new health care law, with the White House on Monday saying he opposes efforts to repeal the CLASS Act — even though his administration said Friday it would suspend the new entitlement indefinitely.

October 17, 2011
"Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Friday of the health care law provision that included nursing homes and in-home aides for the disabled. (Associated Press)

Long-term care stripped from Obama’s health care law

The Obama administration, admitting that a key part of its health care law is unworkable, has abandoned the long-term care provision for the elderly and infirm in its health care law because it could not certify that the program would ever pay for itself.

October 14, 2011
"Listen, we've done four or five solid, jobs-creation bills this week and this bill was part of our Pledge to America," said House Speaker John A. Boehner of the measure to bar federally-subsidized insurance plans from covering abortions. "We're keeping our word to the American people." (Associated Press)

House bars funds for abortions

Embracing legislation that nearly derailed the health care law last year, the House approved tougher restrictions on federally funded abortions in a move that pleased the GOP's pro-life base but met vigorous opposition from President Obama and Senate Democrats.

October 13, 2011
**FILE** President Obama (Associated Press)

House GOP revives abortion issue, irks Obama

After a six-month respite from fights over federal funding of abortion, House Republicans are revisiting the battle with a bill aimed at severing all ties between President Obama's health care law and insuring, performing or obtaining abortions.

October 12, 2011
Elizabeth Warren

Warren shows fundraising savvy in Massachusetts race

In the first indication of her fundraising prowess, Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren dwarfed a Democratic rival and brought in double the sum raised by incumbent Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

October 11, 2011
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican

Supercommittee deadline looms this week

House and Senate committees must submit their deficit-slashing ideas to the supercommittee by the end of the week, giving the 12 members a little more than a month to consider them before the Thanksgiving deadline to agree on a deficit-reduction plan.

October 11, 2011
** FILE ** Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011, after a Democratic caucus lunch. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Reid wants vote this week on millionaires tax

In a plan that convinced more Senate Democrats to fund President Obama's jobs bill, Majority Leader Harry Reid is calling for a vote this week on a new tax targeting millionaires.

October 10, 2011

Medicine panel considers health costs

Weighing in on the types of services Americans will be guaranteed under the new health care law, an Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel told the Obama administration it should consider whether certain services are too expensive to be defined as essential benefits insurers must offer.

October 7, 2011
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin

GOP eyeing upset in West Virginia governor race

The Republican wave that has swept into governors' mansions of neighboring states has yet to reach West Virginia, but the GOP hopes that will change when a political newcomer tries to unseat the acting Democratic governor in a special election Tuesday.

October 2, 2011
** FILE ** President Obama signs the health care bill at the White House in Washington on March 23, 2010. (Associated Press)

White House asks Supreme Court to hear health care case

Showing confidence in its legal case, the Obama administration Wednesday unexpectedly asked the Supreme Court for an expedited hearing of the sole appeals court ruling that found the centerpiece of President Obama's sweeping health care law to be unconstitutional.

September 28, 2011
BITTER PILL: John Castellani, president and CEO of PhRMA, cautions against cutting from 12 years to seven the length of a patent on a company's new drug. (J.M. Eddins Jr./The Washington Times)

PhRMA president calls Obama policy ‘wrongheaded’

The chief spokesman for pharmaceutical manufacturers says President Obama has stuck two thorns in the industry's side at a time marked by uncertainty as lawmakers contemplate cutting health care programs and battles over the new health care law wind their way through the courts.

September 27, 2011

Government won’t seek appeal on health care ruling

Signaling it wants a speedy hearing by the Supreme Court, the Obama administration decided not to ask a federal appeals court in Atlanta to review a ruling that struck down the centerpiece of President Obama's new health care law.

September 26, 2011
Rep. James Lankford (Associated Press)

Obama Medicare reforms on margins

President Obama proposed enough health care savings in his debt plan last week to delay Medicare's looming insolvency by three years, but stopped short of the major reforms all sides say are needed to shore up the program for the long term — and mostly ignored the changes his own deficit commission suggested last year.

September 25, 2011