Medicare | featured news

Tossing out President Barack Obama's health care law would have major unintended consequences for Medicare's payment systems the administration has quietly informed the courts.

The Obama administration today announced it has charged 107 health providers in seven cities with defrauding Medicare of $452 million. Agents arrested doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, company owners, pharmacists and office managers in Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, Detroit, Chicago, Tampa and Baton Rouge, La. The FBI apprehended 59 suspects in South Florida, including the owner of two mental health businesses called Healthcare Solutions Network, The Miami Herald reports.

An aging population and an economy that has been slow to rebound are straining the long-term finances of Social Security and Medicare, the government's two largest benefit programs.

President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative, long touted as a means to control costs, will actually add more than $340 billion to the nation’s budget woes over the next decade, according to a new study by a member of the board that oversees Medicare financing.

Republicans are ready to ram through the House an election-year, $3.5 trillion budget that showcases their deficit-cutting plan for revamping Medicare and slicing everything from food stamps to transportation while rejecting President Barack Obama's call to raise taxes on the rich....

Federal law enforcement officials announced what they called the largest healthcare fraud case in the nation’s history, indicting a Dallas area physician for allegedly bilking Medicare for nearly $375 million in billings for nonexistent home healthcare services.

Despite discomfort in the Republican ranks, House and Senate negotiators reached a deal in principle early Thursday to extend a payroll tax break, continue unemployment benefits and ensure that Medicare doctors do not get a pay cut this year.

The proposal would pay for extending a payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits in part through changes to Medicare and a pay freeze for federal workers.

A key player in implementing President Obama's health care law is stepping down in the face of Republican opposition. Don Berwick, the head of Medicare and Medicaid, was a recess appointment made by Obama after Senate Republicans had vowed to vote down his nomination.

Americans are more likely than ever to reach age 90, redefining in a way what it means to be old. People who are 90 or older have nearly tripled in number since 1980, to 1.9 million, according to Thursday's first-ever census numbers on the age group. The trend is posing unique health challenges and adding to rising government costs for the strained Medicare and Social Security programs.