Health Care Reform | featured news

From the South to the heartland, the once-solid wall of Republican resistance to President Barack Obama's health care law is cracking.

Republican state leaders must decide quickly whether to implement it or have the federal government do so. Obama also faces imminent challenges to carry out the legislation.

After years of political and legal threats kept President Obama’s health care law in a state of uncertainty, his re-election all but assures it will survive. The next hurdle is making it work.

The Republican is well-versed in the issue after passing his landmark law in Massachusetts, but explaining his position has been an ordeal for him. Mitt Romney may know more about healthcare than any other presidential nominee in memory. As governor of Massachusetts, he dove deeply into the subject while creating the most far-reaching state health plan in the country.

Obamacare doesn't violate the religious freedom of employers that don't want to cover contraceptives, a federal judge in Missouri has ruled.

Here's one program candidates aren't likely to mess with: The Medicare prescription drug plan. A new poll sponsored by a health care group shows that 90% of seniors are satisfied with the program known as Medicare Part D, and approval has constantly risen since the plan came on line in 2006.

The ads have hit hard: In one, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown is slammed as an out-of-touch politician who saddled his state's manufacturers with higher taxes by voting for President Obama's health care law. In another, he is savaged for his "failed record on energy."

Under Romney’s proposed health care plan, American families buying non-group health insurance would pay nearly double what they pay under Obamacare, according to a new study by Families USA entitled "ObamaCare versus RomneyCare versus RomneyCandidateCare." That includes both comparative insurance premium payments as well as out-of-pocket expenses.

New polling by Reuters/Ipsos indicates that during the past two weeks - since just after the Democratic National Convention - support for Romney among Americans age 60 and older has crumbled, from a 20-point lead over Democratic President Barack Obama to less than 4 points.

Mitt Romney said Tuesday that President Obama did not raise taxes during his first term, contradicting a constant attack he has leveled on Obama — that his healthcare plan was a tax increase.