GOP leaders offer ‘fiscal cliff’ counterproposal

Would Raise Medicare’s Eligibility Age to 67 By Lori Montgomery for the Washington Post – House GOP leaders endorsed a debt-reduction plan Monday that would raise tax collections by $800 billion over the next decade, but they refused to budge on higher tax rates for the wealthy, the central issue dividing Republicans and Democrats. In…

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GOP Pushes To Let States Reduce Medicaid Rolls

By Mary Agnes Carey and Phil Galewitz for KHN – With their proposal to turn Medicaid into block grants all but dead, Republicans now are pushing legislation to let states tighten eligibility rules for the health program for the poor and disabled. The move, which would affect Medicaid as well as the Children’s Health Insurance…

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GOP plan is a non-starter

By Rep. John Conyers, Jr. – Medicare is arguably one of the nation’s most successful and cherished public insurance programs. The program covers 47 million elderly and disabled Americans, and helps pay for hospital, physician visits and prescription drugs. It is truly hard to argue with success. The traditional Medicare program, coupled with a supplemental…

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GOP Launches Bid To Repeal Health Care Law

By Julie Rovner for NPR – The formal title of the two-page bill the House is scheduled to vote on Wednesday is “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” But in the wake of the recent shootings in Arizona that killed six people and critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the phrase “job-killing” was barely…

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