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Articles by Paige Winfield Cunningham

**FILE** President Obama, accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, announces the revamp of his contraception policy requiring religious institutions to fully pay for birth control on Feb. 10, 2012, at the White House. (Associated Press)

Sebelius urges Senate to reject contraception amendment

The Obama administration is urging the Senate to reject a GOP attempt to overturn a contraception coverage mandate, with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius calling the amendment "dangerous and wrong."

March 1, 2012

Medicare cost-cutting board in GOP sights

After voting last fall to scrap a long-term care program in President Obama's health care law, House Republicans homed in Wednesday on their next major target in the law by advancing legislation that would repeal a Medicare cost-cutting panel and winning support for the move from a leading Democrat.

February 29, 2012

Feds uncover $375B Medicare fraud sceme

Federal officials said Tuesday they have unearthed the largest Medicare fraud scheme ever discovered, arresting a ring of Dallas-area health care professionals on suspicion of collecting $375 billion for phony medical claims.

February 28, 2012
Afghans burn tires in Muhammad Agha in Logar province, which is south of Kabul, on Saturday during an anti-U.S. demonstration over burning of Korans at a U.S. military base. Despite a week of attacks and violent protests, there are no plans to accelerate withdrawal from the country. (Associated Press)

White House vows to stay involved in Afghanistan

Even as another day of anti-U.S. violence saw seven NATO troops hurt in Afghanistan, the Obama administration on Sunday vowed to remain heavily involved in the country and defended the president's handling of a crisis sparked by the inadvertent burning by American troops of Muslim holy books.

February 26, 2012
**FILE** President Obama, accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, announces the revamp of his contraception policy requiring religious institutions to fully pay for birth control on Feb. 10, 2012, at the White House. (Associated Press)

Parties eye advantage in contraceptives fight

The uproar over President Obama's contraception-coverage mandate has become a tug of war over who will get to frame the fight: Republicans, who have called it a war on religious freedom, or Democrats, who insist that it's really about women's health.

February 23, 2012
Dan Danner, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, said Wednesday that the NFIB's friends in the business community and on Capitol Hill initially told him his fight to overturn the new federal health care law was quixotic. “I can tell you today that most of them are no longer saying that,” he said. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)

Federation on front lines of health law battle

As the Supreme Court prepares for an epic legal clash next month on the constitutionality of President Obama's health care law, Dan Danner admits to a certain feeling of vindication.

February 22, 2012
President Barack Obama pauses while announcing the revamp of his contraception policy requiring religious institutions to fully pay for birth control, Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Religious colleges join fight over contraceptives

As Capitol Hill skirmishes over the Obama administration's contraception mandate, the battle is expanding into courtrooms, with more religious colleges joining a growing wave of lawsuits charging that the requirement for employer insurance to provide free contraception violates religious freedom.

February 20, 2012
** FILE ** Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Catholic Bishop joins contraception mandate debate

Pointing to growing unease that President Obama's proposed contraception coverage rule doesn't protect religious freedom sufficiently, a Catholic bishop told Congress on Thursday the church will throw its weight behind House legislation releasing any employer from the mandate on religious or moral grounds.

February 16, 2012
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that self-insuring religious employers will be exempted from a contraception coverage mandate. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. joined her Tuesday for the release of a health care fraud and abuse control program report. (Associated Press)

Self-insuring faith groups exempt from contraceptive order

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that self-insuring religious employers will be exempted from a contraception coverage mandate, clearing up a question raised by Catholic groups and other opponents who continued protesting the rule this week.

February 15, 2012
**FILE** Sen. Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican (Associated Press)

No end near in uproar over insurance coverage of contraception

President Obama's efforts last week have failed to quell the fury over his decision to require most health plans to cover contraception. Republicans are still promising a fight in Congress, and two leading Catholic groups remain on the fence although the administration thought they had been won over.

February 14, 2012

Obama plan cuts preventive, long-term health care funds

Facing budgetary pressures in his annual spending plan, President Obama has proposed cutting resources from a key part of his health care law — a preventive care program designed for Americans to maintain good health.

February 13, 2012

Huge House majority backs insider trading ban

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation banning insider-trading on Thursday, sending it to a conference where lawmakers will try to reconcile the bill with a more restrictive version passed by the Senate.

February 9, 2012
Rep. Eric Cantor

Cantor strips stricter lobbying rules from STOCK Act

House Republicans will try Thursday to push through a popular bill that ensures insider-trading rules apply to members of Congress after GOP leaders ditched a provision to expand the definition of who qualifies as a lobbyist.

February 8, 2012
Sen. Chuck Grassley

Stock Act amendment affects Wall Street traders

The House plans to vote Thursday on its version of a bill to crack down on congressional insider trading and political intelligence peddling, even as the version that passed the Senate last week has raised concerns it could turn the act of calling a congressional staffer about a bill into a lobbying activity.

February 7, 2012

Business group states case against health care mandate

President Obama can't expand health care coverage and then mandate every American purchase coverage to subsidize the added costs, a group suing to block Mr. Obama's health care law said Monday as it laid out arguments in advance of a landmark Supreme Court case scheduled to be heard next month.

February 6, 2012
**FILE** Sen. John McCain (Associated Press)

Senate passes insider trading ban for its members

Ending a week that began with consensus but fractured into contention, the Senate voted Thursday to strengthen insider trading bans for its members, and in the process agreed to ban bonuses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives.

February 2, 2012

House votes to repeal part of health care law

The House voted Wednesday to repeal a part of President Obama's health care law deemed unsustainable by his own administration, sending the bill to the Senate, where Democrats have indicated they aren't ready to kill the long-term care program.

February 1, 2012

Stock Act passage stalled by amendments

Hoping for swift passage of rare bipartisan legislation, the Senate failed to reach a deal late Tuesday on an insider-trading bill, despite its broad support, when it was stalemated by legislators who insisted that unrelated amendments be included.

January 31, 2012
Sen. Scott P. Brown, Massachusetts Republican, warned his colleagues to avoid unrelated amendments so the Stock Act can sail through Congress this week. (Associated Press)

Stock Act advances to debate in Senate

The Senate paved the way Monday to begin debating a crackdown on members of Congress using insider knowledge for personal gain — a bill expected to pass easily if lawmakers don't muddy the waters with extra amendments.

January 30, 2012
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney signs autographs after addressing a crowd of supporters during a campaign rally Sunday in Naples, Fla., ahead of Tuesday's state GOP primary. The former Massachusetts governor has sought to distance his health care law in the Bay State from President Obama's national law. (Naples Daily News via Associated Press)

Romney tiptoes a fine line on health care

Mitt Romney's opponents say his Massachusetts health care law is so similar to President Obama's that he'll be unable to draw distinctions as the GOP's presidential candidate, but a new poll out last week finds that voters don't see the two laws the same.

January 29, 2012