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Articles by Tom Howell Jr.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., speaks to reporters as he heads to vote on budget amendments, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

CBO says Obamacare-payment deal would save nearly $4 billion

A bipartisan bill to stabilize Obamacare's markets would save taxpayers nearly $4 billion through 2027 and have an insignificant impact on the number of people who hold health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation said Wednesday.

October 25, 2017
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, center, address reporters after holding a news conference with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, denouncing a tax overhaul plan from Republicans and called on the state's GOP lawmakers to reject it Monday, Oct. 23, 2017, in Bethlehem, N.Y. (AP Photo/David Klepper)

Chuck Schumer begs Trump to back Obamacare deal

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer begged President Trump Monday to endorse a bipartisan deal to stabilize Obamacare's markets, saying the bill "has the necessary 60 votes" to pass without hiccups after every Democrat and a dozen Senate Republicans rallied to it.

October 23, 2017
Protesters participate in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court in Washington on March 25, 2015, as the court heard oral arguments in the challenges of President Barack Obama's health care law requirement that businesses provide their female employees with health insurance that includes access to contraceptives. (Associated Press) **FILE**

DOJ says it’s settled ‘contraception mandate’ cases

The Trump administration announced Monday it has settled dozens of lawsuits that Catholic universities, charities and others filed over President Obama's "contraception mandate," as it defuses a years-long legal saga that had reached the Supreme Court.

October 23, 2017
This Sept. 22, 2017 file photo shows Maine Gov. Paul LePage attending a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence to discuss health care and tax reform in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Complex in Washington. LePage says the media fanned the flames in a flap with sheriffs over his directive they should hold immigrants without warrants and is calling news organizations "the most horrible organizations on the earth." The outburst came Monday, Oct. 16, 2017 after he summoned all 16 sheriffs to a closed-door meeting. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) — FILE

Obamacare subsidies put directly to Maine voters

Maine voters will decide in November whether to expand their Medicaid rolls under Obamacare, offering a major test of the public's appetite for government-funded insurance as Congress decides whether to rein in or build on the 2010 law that swelled the federal footprint in health care.

October 22, 2017
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Senators announce 24 cosponsors for Obamacare deal

Two dozen senators -- half Republican, half Democrat -- signed onto a Senate plan Thursday to resume critical Obamacare payments and empower governors to experiment with the 2010 health law.

October 19, 2017
President Donald Trump looks down at his podium during a news conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Donald Trump criticizes Obamacare deal he supported one day ago

President Trump on Wednesday backed off his support for a bipartisan deal to restore critical Obamacare payments, dealing a major blow to the effort just a day after he praised the compromise that a key senator said the president himself had "engineered."

October 18, 2017
Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican, struck the agreement with Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, to fund pivotal "cost-sharing" payments for two years. (Associated Press/File)

Lamar Alexander says he landed deal on Obamacare stabilization

President Trump threw his support Tuesday behind a short-term Obamacare fix that would restart payments to insurance companies, saying it was a way to buy time while Republicans work toward a broad repeal that he insisted they will eventually find the votes to pass.

October 17, 2017
In this June 6, 2017, file photo, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee ranking member Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., asks a question during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Claire McCaskill seeks repeal of law that limited DEA amid opioids crisis

Red-state Democrats cried foul Monday over a 2016 law that made it harder for federal agents to freeze suspicious shipments of pain pills, saying Congress and the Obama administration goofed by approving what turned out to be an industry-friendly bill, rather than the stiff crackdown they'd wanted.

October 16, 2017
"We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran's nuclear breakout," President Trump said Friday in refusing to re-certify the nuclear deal President Obama signed. (Associated Press)

Donald Trump’s Iran move gives Congress time to get tough

The U.S. plans to remain in the nuclear deal with Iran but will push to make sure Tehran lives up to its end of the bargain, administration officials said Sunday, as President Trump asks Congress for help in beefing up an international pact he once derided as "the worst deal ever."

October 15, 2017
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said Democrats are "not about closing down government." She said Republicans who call the shots on Capitol Hill bear responsibility for what happens next after President Trump halted payments to insurers under the Obama-era health care law. (Associated Press/File)

Democrats deny shutdown over Obamacare

Democrats on Sunday downplayed talk of forcing a government shutdown after President Trump launched a twin assault on Obamacare, saying they will continue their uphill push to negotiate fixes to the law after the administration halted critical "cost-sharing payments" to insurers and ordered agencies to explore the sale of cheaper plans across state lines.

October 15, 2017
The Obama administration decided in 2012 that birth control was part of mandatory coverage under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, upsetting faith-based employers who were opposed to some types contraceptives. (Associated Press/File)

Donald Trump’s contraceptive coverage rollback sparks ACLU lawsuit

It took just minutes for the first lawsuit to be announced last week after the Trump administration said it was rolling back Obamacare's contraceptive coverage mandate, creating an exemption for faith-based organizations that said paying for employees' birth control violated their faiths.

October 8, 2017
Protesters participate in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court in Washington on March 25, 2015, as the court heard oral arguments in the challenges of President Barack Obama's health care law requirement that businesses provide their female employees with health insurance that includes access to contraceptives. (Associated Press) **FILE**

Trump rolls back Obama-era contraception mandate

The Trump administration said Friday it will let a vast universe of employers duck Obamacare's contraceptive mandate by claiming a religious or moral objection -- a long-awaited move that thrilled pro-life conservatives and appalled Democrats and civil liberties groups, who said they will sue.

October 6, 2017