It walks like a tax and talks like a tax. Therefore it is a tax.
Among the promises of the health reform law -- now upheld by the Supreme Court -- is affordable insurance for millions of low- and middle-income Americans.
Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on health care reform, the justices have one thing in common, and one thing in common with a growing cohort of Americans: They are aging.
updated: Wed May 02 2012 18:20:00
Attorney General Holder announces 107 are charged in a Medicare fraud case involving $452 million in false billings.
Highlighting the fiscal problems posed by growing health costs and an aging population, the trustees of the nation's main entitlement programs estimated Monday that Medicare will only be able to pay a portion of its expected costs starting in 2024.
No one knows for sure what the Supreme Court will do with health care reform. But unless it strikes down the whole law, millions of wealthy families can expect a tax increase come January.
Led by its Republican majority, the U.S. House voted Thursday to eliminate from the 2010 health care reform law a proposed advisory board that would recommend how to achieve needed, but as-yet-unreachable Medicare savings.
In the bitter political debate over health care reform two years ago, one of the most contentious issues was a proposed advisory board that would recommend how to achieve needed but as-yet-unreachable Medicare savings.
High-income households will be paying more into Medicare as a result of the new health reform law.
Dr. Jacques Roy, a Dallas area physician, allegedly led a scheme that bilked Medicare for nearly $375 million over five years, in the largest healthcare fraud committed in the United States, federal authorities announced Tuesday.
updated: Mon Feb 27 2012 18:26:00
The Dean Ornish Program, which includes yoga and other lifestyle changes, is now covered under Medicare.
The federal government recovered almost $4.1 billion stolen in health care fraud schemes during fiscal year 2011, Obama administration officials announced Tuesday. The figure is up 58 percent from 2009.
A 61-year-old man was sentenced Monday to 15 years in federal prison for helping engineer a $14.2 million Medicare fraud, including hiring parishioners at the church he co-lead to help with the scheme, the federal government said.
As administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, Donald Berwick has been in charge of paying for the health care of nearly one in three Americans. He has also had an important role in implementing last year's health reform law, which uses the Medicare system as a big lever to change how doctors and hospitals do business, in hopes of containing costs.
A proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden to allow those who retire in the future to choose between Medicare and private health care insurance for seniors is the latest addition to the drive to increase competition in health care.
The payroll tax impasse in Congress has put Medicare doctors on edge over the likelihood that their pay could be slashed 27.4% in two weeks time.
This has been a volatile year for the stock market. But one sector has been consistently earning a windfall for investors: health insurers that provide private Medicare plans to seniors.
The Paul Ryan-Ron Wyden Medicare reform plan is a political game-changer. Amidst heated gridlock in Washington, Rep. Paul Ryan, a conservative budget hawk, and Sen. Ron Wyden, a respected liberal senator, have reached consensus on vital entitlement reform. Medicare is on the track to insolvency; this could be the bipartisan solution.
Democrats and Republicans both support extending the payroll tax cut for workers, and they both agree that the cost of the extension should be offset through changes elsewhere in the budget.
Federal authorities have charged 12 people in connection with billing schemes that involved more than $95 million in fraudulent Medicare claims, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday.
Thanks to Medicare, there's at least one thing you don't have to worry about in retirement: whether you'll have health insurance. How you'll get it, on the other hand, is another matter.
Some 35 million Medicare recipients will have to dig a little deeper into their pockets when they go to the doctor next year.
It's a big number and nothing to sneeze at -- $1.2 trillion. Unfortunately, when it comes to reining in U.S. debt, it's not enough.
This is the second-part of MONEY's ongoing series on Medicare.
This Sunday morning, and for every foreseeable Sunday until at least the 2012 elections, the talking-head news shows will be crowded with members of both parties talking about the need to fix out-of-control "entitlements." Politicians like that word. It's safely nonspecific, and we're all a little suspicious of someone who feels entitled.
The federal government closed out fiscal year 2011 with an estimated deficit of $1.3 trillion, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates released Friday.
Four hundred federal agents from coast to coast swooped down on 70 alleged Medicare fraudsters for allegedly ripping off taxpayers of nearly $300 million in phony billings.
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are three of the government's most popular and relied upon programs.
Hospital and doctor groups warned Monday that the debt ceiling deal could damage seniors' access to health care if it triggers pay cuts to Medicare providers.
Doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and pharmacies might not get paid for products and services if the federal government defaults on its debt next week.
updated: Thu Jul 28 2011 07:37:00
House Republicans begin lining up behind Boehner's bill, but will it clear Congress? CNN's Kate Bolduan reports.
As the August 2 deadline looms for Congress to extend the debt ceiling, Democrats and Republicans are both fiddling while Rome burns.
With less than a month to go before debt ceiling D-Day, President Obama says he's gunning for the big deal -- the comprehensive, balanced plan that would take a big knife to the country's debt.
Should we control the spiraling cost of Medicare by raising its eligibility age from 65 to 67 or more? Many have argued that we should, because, they say, life expectancy today is much higher than when Medicare was created. The program was never designed to last so many years per person, and so, perhaps, people should retire later.
We can try to fix Medicare in two ways. One is a proven winner, the other a proven loser. The stakes could scarcely be higher -- and right now we're betting on the loser.
When a loved one moves into a nursing home, the support of family and friends is particularly important. This is especially true when the nursing home patient has dementia and can't adequately advocate on his or her own behalf.
Top Republicans tiptoed their way around the Medicare question Sunday, playing to their conservative base by backing a controversial overhaul proposal while acknowledging they will have to negotiate the issue with Democrats.
When a young GOP Congressman stripped off his shirt, took his picture and e-mailed it to a woman, he did more than end his career -- he set off a political ripple that probably ends prospects for resolving the nation's growing debt crisis before next year's elections.
In what amounted to political theater rather than legislative action, the Senate on Wednesday rejected a House budget plan that included a controversial provision to overhaul Medicare and also unanimously voted down President Barack Obama's 2012 budget proposal.
Bill Clinton had a word of warning on Wednesday for fellow Democrats: Don't get too cocky about voters' rejection of Paul Ryan's Medicare plan.
Has the Republican Medicare plan undermined the GOP's 2012 election hopes?
A leading House conservative on Sunday qualified her support for a Republican budget proposal that would overhaul Medicare, saying she was concerned it could hurt senior citizens.
In town hall meetings being held across the country during Congress' two-week recess, American citizens are filling the ears of Republican legislators with objections to the party's budget plan, particularly proposed changes to Medicare that would replace direct coverage with subsidies for private insurance.
updated: Thu Apr 21 2011 13:37:00
Proposed changes to Medicare and Medicaid have future senior citizens concerned. CNN's Sandra Endo reports.
updated: Fri Apr 15 2011 23:51:00
House Republicans push through a budget blueprint that would overhaul Medicare and Medicaid. CNN's Dana Bash reports.
With his budget speech Wednesday President Obama had an opportunity to reach across the political aisle. He could have proposed a budget plan that focused on the long run, combined needed structural changes to the Big Three entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- with the tax increases he wants.
When it comes to deciding who pays to reduce runaway Medicare costs, President Obama and House Republicans have very different views.
In many ways, the debate over taming the nation's spending and deficit beasts can be compared to a family's hand-wringing over what to cut, and what to keep, in tough times. It may be easy to nix "luxuries" like vacations and eating out. But should "essentials" like a car or a home be downsized or gotten rid of to save money?
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's 2012 budget resolution turned the floodlights on Medicare, the health care program for seniors that is projected to take increasingly bigger bites out of the federal budget in the coming decades.
Late last month, the Patient Protection and Affordability Act, better known as "health care reform," quietly celebrated its first birthday. The bill has its supporters, including the millions of previously uninsured Americans who will have access to coverage because of it. But its critics have been more vocal, attacking the landmark legislation for "gutting" Medicare, drastically understating the measure's probable cost, and funding a new entitlement with early premiums from still another entitlement for long-term care that's destined to go broke.
Top House Republican leaders unveiled a 2012 budget proposal Tuesday that would cut $6.2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade while radically overhauling Medicare and Medicaid -- two hugely popular entitlement programs that have long been considered politically untouchable.
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan said Sunday he will unveil a Republican budget for 2012 this week that proposes dramatic changes to Medicare, Medicaid and other political lightning rods.
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, will unveil a highly anticipated 2012 Republican budget next week that proposes dramatic changes to political lightning rods: entitlements.
The first wave of of baby boomers -- including Cher, Steven Spielberg, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and nearly 3 million other Americans -- will turn 65 this year. If you're among those celebrating in 2011 or the next few years, you may be feeling a bit gloomy about a birthday that officially crowns you a senior citizen. You're too young to be old, right?
Under health care reform, consumers will see several new changes to their insurance coverage this year, the most significant of which affects the nation's 47 million Medicare beneficiaries.
Commentary: Maya MacGuineas is the director of the fiscal policy program at the New America Foundation.
Federal authorities indicted and arrested more than 100 doctors, nurses and health care executives nationwide Thursday in what officials said was the biggest crackdown ever in a single day in connection with Medicare fraud.
The federal government returned a record total of more than $2.5 billion to the Medicare program from settlements and court judgments surrounding health care fraud cases last year, according to a government report issued Monday.
Dear 112th Congress: Congratulations and so forth, but we don't have time for pleasantries. I'm afraid I have bad news. Do you recall all those charts you've seen showing Medicare costs, Social Security costs, federal interest payments, and the national debt rising steadily for years and then suddenly taking off like a fighter jet? (If not, you can see them in the Treasury's latest Financial Report of the U.S. Government.) Well, the jet's barreling down the runway. Things have been getting fiscally bad for a long time. They're about to get much worse. A new Moody's report says that America could lose its triple-A credit rating on your watch. You've got to decide what to do about it.
updated: Mon Jan 03 2011 17:07:00
In 2011, new laws kick in involving illegal plants, trash, and what to do if you're pulled over by a police officer.
updated: Tue Dec 28 2010 12:04:00
New Medicare regulations that reimburse doctors for discussing end-of-life options renews "death panel" fears.
Thinking about death can be frightening, no matter your age or medical condition. As we get older, the reality of our own mortality tends to come into clearer focus; this doesn't make talking about death or life-sustaining treatments any less frightening though.
The House approved a bipartisan bill Thursday that would prevent a 25% cut in doctors' Medicare reimbursement rates in 2011, sending it to President Obama for his signature.
The Senate approved a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would prevent a 25% cut in doctors' Medicare reimbursement rates in 2011.
The Senate on Tuesday introduced a bipartisan bill that would prevent a 25% cut in doctors' Medicare reimbursement rates in 2011.
Three large pharmaceutical firms have agreed to pay a total of $421 million to settle allegedly inflated claims against the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
The House approved Monday a $1 billion measure that delays by one month a 23% cut in federal Medicare reimbursements to doctors.
The House on Monday is scheduled to take up a $1-billion measure delaying by one month a 23 percent cut in federal Medicare reimbursements to doctors.
updated: Wed Nov 24 2010 09:56:00
Indiana Rep. Mike Pence says he's willing to consider cuts to Medicare and Medicaid to help balance the budget.
In a post-midterm elections interview, President Obama said "we're gonna have to ... tackle some big issues like entitlements that, you know, when you listen to the Tea Party or you listen to Republican candidates they promise we're not gonna touch."
The Republicans' midterm surge has given the federal debt-reduction commission -- whose recommendations are due Dec. 1 -- a chance to stand up and be counted. The panel is bipartisan, but as long as Democrats were able to have their way ultimately in both houses of Congress, Republican members had little clout. Now that the balance of power has shifted, the ideas of the panel's deficit hawks, such as Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), may get a bit more respect. Co-chairs Erskine Bowles (chief of staff for Bill Clinton) and Alan Simpson (former GOP senator from Wyoming) have offered a proposal, but it's only a draft. We'll know the commission blew its opportunity ...
Just back from recess, Congress is staring at a deadline that will result in a dramatic cut in Medicare payments to doctors if no action is taken.
updated: Fri Nov 12 2010 08:13:00
CNN's John King discusses the tough decisions behind cutting the deficit.
Republicans rode a tidal wave of senior support into control of the House, promising to cut government spending and restore fiscal sanity to Washington.
The United States racked up a $1.29 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2010, the federal government said Friday.
Inflation has barely budged in recent months, but try telling that to the seniors who won't be getting an increase in their Social Security benefits next year.
Federal authorities arrested more than 50 suspects Wednesday and smashed what they describe as an Armenian-American organized crime enterprise engaged in a nationwide scheme to defraud the Medicare program.
September 23 marks the six-month anniversary of health reform. It's also the date when several key insurance changes come into effect.
For more than a year, Democrats in Washington have turned a deaf ear to the American people when it comes to health care.
The newly passed health care law will boost the financial strength of the nation's massive Medicare program, the government said Thursday.
Federal agents charged 94 people in five cities Friday with defrauding Medicare, the Department of Justice and other federal agencies said in a joint statement.
Put away those plastic mini-goggles and grab your favorite tube of self-tanner. The first new tax to fund health care reform goes into effect Thursday -- a 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services.
The House voted Thursday to reverse a 21% cut in government fees paid to doctors who treat Medicare patients.
Doctors who receive Medicare payments won a round Friday in their bid for a raise - but first they'll suffer a big cut in their government reimbursements.
As lawmakers tussle over freezing a 21% cut to doctors' Medicare fees, physicians are stuck waiting for word as to how much they'll be paid -- and when.
The government is mailing $250 checks this week to seniors who fall into the gap in Medicare's prescription drug coverage.
"I read all about my condition on the Internet," a recent patient proudly told me. Like other doctors, I'm seeing more patients research their symptoms thoroughly before setting foot in the exam room.
The American Medical Association is launching an ad campaign pushing lawmakers to freeze a 21% cut to the fees doctors receive to treat Medicare patients.
For the fourth time this year, doctors face a potential huge cut in the fees that the government pays them to treat Medicare patients.
Now that health reform is law, many physicians are complaining that while it may help their patients, it doesn't go far enough to help doctors.
The enormous ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano continues to wreak havoc on travelers. One way to protect yourself financially from events like this: travel insurance.
For millions of uninsured or underinsured Americans, health reform legislation will soon remove some of the barriers preventing them from getting the coverage they need.
Between the new Medicare tax on investment income and a rise in capital gains and dividend taxes, investors will face higher costs. But the overall effect on stock returns is not as cut and dry.
A growing number of major U.S. corporations are expecting to take tax charges in the first quarter related to the recently enacted health care reform law.
What? Really? You don't understand the new health care reform legislation? You find yourself confused? If you haven't mastered the minutiae on all 2,309 pages of the health care reform bill signed earlier this week by President Obama, there's nothing wrong with you -- even experts are having a hard time getting a grip on all the details.
It hasn't even been a week since President Obama signed sweeping health care legislation, but several companies already have warned shareholders they expect to take a hit.
President Obama signed sweeping health care reform into law Tuesday. The Senate must now pass a package of changes that will reconcile the differences between Senate and House bills. If those changes are worked out, here is how health care reforms will affect you:
The momentous vote the House took on Sunday made far-reaching changes to the American health care system.
Democratic congressional leaders unveiled their long-awaited $940 billion compromise health care plan Thursday, setting the stage for a vote Sunday.
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