Congress may have just passed its last easy doc fix. The one-year payment patch was passed as part of the fiscal cliff package this week. It offset the $25 billion cost of freezing doctors’ pay rates through a series of small health program cuts. Those cuts have the hospitals grumbling....
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will return to work “for real this time” after being released from the hospital where she was being treated for a blood clot in her brain, Foreign Policy reported.
The battle to get Congress to renew the wind-energy production tax credit before year’s end strained relationships among utilities, splintered the industry’s biggest trade group and is setting up the industry — and its supporters on Capitol Hill — for an even more contentious 2013. Many utilities, environmental groups, and...
Conservative Democrats aligned with the National Rifle Association, shaken by the Newtown school massacre, are reconsidering their opposition to gun controls such as bans on certain assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, writes the National Journal. These Second-Amendment champions could be the key to passing new legislation this year, as could...
The countdown to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s long-anticipated departure from the Obama administration became more official on Thursday with a Treasury Department spokeswoman confirming that Geithner still plans to step down later this month. Geithner’s planned exit puts him out before negotiations on the debt ceiling and sequestration are due...
HHS conditionally approved seven state health insurance exchange plans Thursday, bringing the total number to 17, plus the District of Columbia. HHS granted approvals to every state that submitted a plan by the mid-December deadline except Mississippi; that state’s governor and insurance commissioner disagree on how to proceed. While no...