Medicare

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.

House Speaker John Boehner and his usual nemesis, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, are working together to try resolving the long-running problem of how Medicare pays doctors.

House Republicans are proposing to use tens of billions of dollars in additional war funding to get around tight budget limits on the Pentagon in their new budget plan.

A briefing paper circulating among lawmakers shows that bipartisan House leaders are working on a $213 billion plan to address a problem that's vexed Congress for years: changing how doctors are paid for treating Medicare patients.

Lobbyists say top House Republicans and Democrats are working toward a $200 billion agreement revamping how doctors are paid for treating Medicare patients.

A law that allows rural hospitals to bill Medicare for rehabilitation services for seniors at higher rates than nursing homes and other facilities has led to billions of dollars in extra government spending, federal investigators say.

Patients face ever-growing exposure to the cost of revolutionary new medications.

Congress is poised to allow Americans with disabilities to open tax-sheltered bank accounts to pay for certain long-term expenses — the broadest legislation to help the disabled in nearly a quarter-century.