Budget Battles
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McConnell Warns Trump Against Pre-Election Stimulus Deal
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Pelosi Sets Deadline for Stimulus Deal
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US Deficit Soars to $3.1 Trillion
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McConnell Rejects Trump’s Call for Bigger Stimulus
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Mnuchin: Relief Bill Will Be ‘Difficult’ Before Election
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Trump Undermines McConnell on Stimulus Plan
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Trump Faces a GOP Revolt Over Stimulus
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OxyContin Maker Pleads Guilty, Will Pay $8.3 Billion
By Michael RaineyPurdue Pharma has agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal charges for its role in creating the opioid crisis, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. The OxyContin maker will pay $8.3 billion...
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Trump’s Drug Discount Cards for Seniors Get Pushed Back
By Michael RaineyThe Trump administration plans to send $200 discount cards for prescription drugs to more than 30 million Medicare beneficiaries, but the White House is abandoning an effort to have them shipped out...
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Pelosi Says Help Is On the Way, but When?
Help is on the way, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, referring to the coronavirus relief package she’s been negotiating with the White House. But she...
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Two New Polls Find Trouble for Trump on the Economy
As the Trump administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) scramble to see if they can reach a roughly $2 trillion stimulus deal — while Senate Republicans look to vote on a smaller, $500...
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Most Americans Don’t Want Protections for Pre-Existing Conditions Overturned
By Michael RaineyPresident Trump insists that he has a plan to protect people with pre-existing conditions if the Supreme Court invalidates the Affordable Care Act – something that could happen just after the...
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Pelosi Cites Progress, but Warns of Poison Pills in Stimulus Deal
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said after a nearly 90-minute negotiating session Thursday that they had made some progress toward a coronavirus relief package...
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Mnuchin: Relief Bill Will Be ‘Difficult’ Before Election
In case it wasn’t already clear that a new coronavirus relief bill probably isn’t coming before the election, just take a look at what Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has been negotiating the...
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McConnell Plans Vote on Narrow Relief Package. Trump Says, ‘Go Big or Go Home!!!’
As the stalemate over another coronavirus relief package continues, these three things all happened on Tuesday: • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that the Senate will take up...
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Trump Faces a GOP Revolt Over Stimulus
The faint hopes that were raised last week for another coronavirus relief package faded very quickly, as congressional Republicans and Democrats both rejected a $1.8 trillion White House proposal,...
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Trump Approves $1.8 Trillion Stimulus Offer to Pelosi
He calls her a “nut job.” She questions his mental health. Together, they have to work out a roughly $2 trillion package to rescue the economy. It might sound like a pitch for the worst rom-com ever...
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More Uninsured Last Year, Even as Poverty Shrank to Record Low
By Michael RaineyNearly 30 million people lacked health insurance at some point in 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday, an increase of about 1 million from the year before. The number of uninsured increased for...
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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...