Medicare

With the public concerned about the high cost of new prescription drugs, a policy center that's often in sync with the Obama administration is coming out with new recommendations.

Anthem is buying rival Cigna in a deal valued at $54.2 billion that will create the nation's largest health insurer by enrollment, covering about 53 million patients in the U.S.

Looking at the big picture, the financial health of Social Security and Medicare doesn't appear to have worsened.

The government says people who receive Social Security disability face steep benefit cuts next year unless Congress acts.

The average consumer should catch a price break if major health insurers like Anthem and Cigna combine and cut their expenses.

Highlights of House-passed legislation the Senate debated Tuesday changing how Medicare reimburses doctors.

Huge majorities of both parties in Congress have finally banded together and approved legislation permanently reshaping how Medicare reimburses doctors for treating over 50 million elderly people.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is proposing an income cap on Social Security benefits as part of major restructuring plan announced ahead of a likely presidential bid.

Legislation permanently overhauling how Medicare pays physicians won approval Tuesday from an atypically united Congress as lawmakers banded together to erase an irritant that has dogged them for years.

With Republicans muscling a balanced-budget plan through the Senate, Congress is positioned for months of battling President Barack Obama over the GOP's goals of slicing spending and dismantling his health care law.

New momentum for a lasting fix to Medicare's doctor-payment problem shows that lawmakers may finally be recognizing what has long bothered their constituents.

President Barack Obama said Wednesday he's ready to sign "good, bipartisan" legislation protecting physicians from steep cuts in Medicare reimbursements as Senate Democrats seemed to soften their opposition to the package.

President Barack Obama wants to cut health care costs by reducing inefficiencies like unnecessarily long hospital stays and excessive paperwork for doctors that rack up big bills.

House leaders say their chamber will approve a bipartisan compromise this week preventing deep cuts in physicians' Medicare fees and extending health care funds for children and low-income seniors.

House Republicans quietly deepened recommended budget savings from the government's chief health care program for the poor by about $140 billion in recent weeks to offset part of the cost of higher payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients, according to officials familiar with the tradeoff.

Language has been added to an emerging bipartisan deal on Medicare clarifying that the agreement's abortion restrictions on community health centers are temporary and won't be inscribed into permanent law, House Democrats said Monday.

When President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act five years ago, he visualized a time when the political hyperbole would be silenced and ordinary people would see that the health care law improved their lives.

A budding bipartisan House deal to shelter physicians from Medicare cuts is drawing powerful allies including the American Medical Association and a rainbow of conservative and liberal groups.

An emerging bipartisan House deal changing how Medicare pays physicians would raise money in part by targeting Medicare providers who are tax scofflaws and by curbing reimbursements for hospitals and nursing homes.

A tentative bipartisan House deal to change how Medicare reimburses doctors is running into turbulence in the Senate over abortion.