By Mark Mix
Home day care providers would be forced into unions
The Senate on Wednesday approved President Obama's pick to lead the nation's Medicare agency, sending it a permanent leader for the first time in several years as the nation inches closer to sweeping health care reforms. Marilyn B. Tavenner enjoyed bipartisan support at the committee level before the full chamber voted, 91-7, to confirm her as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The Senate on Thursday voted to repeal a sales tax on medical devices that is part of President Obama's health-care law, a rare bipartisan attempt to strip away a section of the controversial reforms.
House Republicans are pushing back against President Obama's program to offer waivers to states on welfare work-requirement standards that critics say undermine a key piece of the 1996 welfare reform law.
For the last several years the immigration debate in Washington has been much like America’s immigration system itself – disorganized, vague and without clear borders. Fortunately, it seems like we’re starting to make progress. Thanks in part to President Obama’s State of the Union address and the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Feb. 13, more Americans and lawmakers are becoming aware of our broken immigration system and are evaluating ways to enact change.
Eleven Republican members of Congress are challenging the contraception insurance mandate in President Obama's health care law by formally backing Hobby Lobby, the Oklahoma-based chain of crafts stores whose owners say they must choose between their Christian beliefs and insuring women's birth control and other preventative services.
Robert H. Bork, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon's behest and whose failed 1987 nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, has died. He was 85.
The Palestinians are certain to win U.N. recognition as a state on Thursday but success could exact a high price: delaying an independent state of Palestine because of Israel's vehement opposition.
The National Federation of Independent Business is endorsing Republicans over Democrats by a better than 10-1 margin in congressional races this year. But when the small business group needed someone to head its campaign for rolling back federal regulations, it turned to former Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.
The Senate's tax-writing panel is moving to revive dozens of tax breaks for businesses like biodiesel and wind energy producers, even as the GOP-controlled House trumpets symbolic legislation to erase them and create a new tax code with lower rates and fewer special interest tax breaks.
Medicare's war on fraud is going high-tech with the opening of a $3.6 million command center that features a giant screen and the latest computer and communications gear. That's raising expectations, as well as some misgivings.
Welfare to work is the cornerstone of a reform passed in 1996 by a Republican Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. The Obama administration on Thursday announced it was taking steps to gut this landmark law.
Two veteran congressmen, New York's Rep. Charles Rangel and Utah's Sen. Orrin Hatch, headed to victory Tuesday after early returns showed them staving off primary challenges from younger rivals.
Over the past two years, GOP primaries have ended the careers of several veteran Republican politicians who were backed by the party's establishment. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch is seeking to avoid the same fate in his first primary challenge since winning office in 1976.
He chairs one of Capitol Hill's most powerful committees, won his 2010 race with 62 percent of the vote and even boasts a niece who graced Sports Illustrated's swimsuit-edition cover. But all that hasn't saved Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan from a strong Republican primary challenge.
"While I still have many concerns about the policies of this administration and the direction CMS is heading, I plan to vote in favor of her confirmation because she has the ability and the potential to be a real leader," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.
