Budget Battles
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New Poll Finds Liberals and Conservatives Agree: Tax the Super-Rich
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Biden Vows US Will Pay to Rebuild Collapsed Baltimore Bridge
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How Congress Wasted ‘Months of Precious Time’ on the 2024 Spending Bills
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Senate Struggles to Avert Shutdown, Speaker Johnson Faces Revolt
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Long-Delayed $1.2 Trillion Spending Package Zooms to the Finish Line
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Debt Will Hit Record High This Decade, CBO Warns
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Congress Races Against the Clock to Avoid Shutdown
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Drugmakers Push Back Against Price Negotiations
By Michael RaineyMajor pharmaceutical firms are fighting a new federal program that empowers the government to negotiate lower prices for drugs that are widely prescribed in the Medicare system. The Washington Post’s...
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Biden Proposes a $7.3 Trillion Budget for 2025
President Biden on Monday proposed a $7.3 trillion budget for fiscal year 2025 that seeks to lower the costs of prescription drugs, child care and housing while also cutting the deficit by $3...
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UnitedHealth Faces New Justice Department Antitrust Probe: Reports
The Justice Department has reportedly launched an antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth, the nation’s largest health insurer and a top manager of pharmacy benefits and physician groups...
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Americans’ Top Financial Worry: Healthcare
By Michael RaineyHealthcare issues claim the top spots in the list of things U.S. voters are “very” or “somewhat worried” about being able to afford, according to the latest tracking poll from the healthcare...
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New Record for Obamacare Signups
By Michael RaineyA record 20 million people have signed up for health care through the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Wednesday. This marks...
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As Drug Prices Rise, $35 Cap on Insulin Takes Effect
By Michael RaineyPharmaceutical companies rang in the New Year as they usually do: raising prices on hundreds of medications. According to research cited by Reuters , companies like Pfizer, Sanofi and Takeda will...
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More Than Half of Children Losing Medicaid Coverage Live in Just 5 States
By Michael RaineyAs individual states continue to disenroll millions of people from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) now that pandemic-era suspension of participation guidelines has come to...
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Biden Admin Threatens to Seize Publicly Funded Drug Patents
By Michael RaineyThe Biden administration took steps Thursday that could clear the way for the federal government to seize the patents of high-priced pharmaceuticals that were developed using public funds. The move...
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CVS Says It Will Overhaul How It Prices Prescription Drugs
Drugstore giant CVS Health announced Tuesday that it is dramatically changing the way its pharmacies are reimbursed for prescription medications, shifting to a model that it says is simpler and more...
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Medicaid Expansion Opens Up Coverage for 600,000 in North Carolina
By Michael RaineyMore than 600,000 residents of North Carolina will gain access to health insurance starting today thanks to the expansion of the state’s Medicaid program. Since his election in 2016, Democratic Gov...
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Medicaid Work Requirements in Arkansas Didn’t Boost Employment: Study
By Michael RaineyA new study of work requirements for Medicaid recipients in Arkansas finds that they did nothing to increase employment but did impose substantial hardships on those who lost coverage as a result of...
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Trump Knew, Downplayed Coronavirus Threat: Woodward Recordings
President Trump acknowledged in early February that the coronavirus pandemic was more deadly than the flu and said in March that he was intentionally playing down the severity of the virus outbreak,...
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Pharma CEOs Pledge to Abide by Science, Not Politics, for Coronavirus Vaccine
By Michael RaineyThe chief executive officers of nine pharmaceutical companies – AstraZeneca, BioNTech, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer, Merck and Sanofi – have pledged to uphold...
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A Doctor Was Charged $10,984 for a Covid Test – by His Own Employer
By Marshall Allen, ProPublicaWhen Dr. Zachary Sussman went to Physicians Premier ER in Austin for a COVID-19 antibody test, he assumed he would get a freebie because he was a doctor for the chain. Instead, the free-standing...
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Trump’s Plan to Benchmark Drug Prices Probably Won’t Do Much to Lower Costs: Report
By Michael RaineyPresident Trump signed four executive orders in July that propose ways to lower drug costs, one of which calls for the federal government to use the typically lower prices set in some other countries...