Even though Congressional Republican leadership said it has moved on from repealing the Affordable Care Act, a coalition of conservative groups compiled their own plan to repeal the health care law.
Read moreMembers of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors visited Congress as midterm fever sweeps Washington.
AARP is not giving up on its fight to restore the Department of Labor fiduciary rule. The lobbying group will file an appeal to keep the rule, which was tossed out by a New Orleans court last month.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners voted Saturday to accept more comments for 30 days on its best interest rule for annuity sales. The model law draft has drawn criticism from both sides for being both too tough and too lenient.
From drivers paying more for gas and families bearing heavier child care costs to workers still awaiting decent pay raises and couples struggling to afford a home, people throughout the economy are straining to succeed despite the economy’s gains.
Halfway through a news conference Wednesday, the head of the world’s most powerful central bank was asked a question weighing on the minds _ and the checking accounts _ of Americans everywhere: When will people finally start getting meaningful pay raises? Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, had no satisfactory answer. He called it a “puzzle.” And then, as if measuring his words, he said he wasn’t prepared to call it a “mystery.”
In a case with billions of dollars at stake, a federal appeals court ruled that the federal government doesn’t have to pay health insurers money they say they are owed under the Affordable Care Act.
The Trump administration’s latest move against the Affordable Care Act could jeopardize legal protections on pre-existing medical conditions for millions of people with employer coverage, particularly workers in small businesses, say law and insurance experts.
The plan includes premium support, as well as the implementation of an “Innovation Fund” that states can access to mitigate the risk associated with people who suffer from costly, chronic conditions.
President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un concluded an extraordinary nuclear summit Tuesday with the U.S. president pledging unspecified “security guarantees” to the North and Kim reiterating his commitment to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” A broad agreement signed by the leaders contrasted sharply with their lofty promises to handle “a very dangerous problem” and bring “major change for the world.”
WASHINGTON- Another interest rate increase is all but certain when the Federal Reserve meets this week. What’s not so sure is whether the vigorous U.S. economy will lead the Fed to accelerate its rate hikes in the months ahead- a move that could raise the risk of a recession. The Fed has so far raised its key rate once this year, in March.
The Trump administration said in a court filing that it will no longer defend key parts of the Affordable Care Act, including the requirement that people have health insurance and provisions that guarantee access to health insurance regardless of any medical conditions.
Democrats left little doubt that heath care will be their signature issue in the mid-term contests, betting the GOP’s decision to weaken the Affordable Care Act as part of its tax overhaul will give them a winning platform to run on while vulnerable senators are tethered to Capitol Hill this August.
The House version also calls for a dozen new Navy ships. The Senate began debating its $716 billion defense bill on Wednesday, which highlights potential threats from Russia and China. The Senate version also includes an Army brigade permanently stationed in Poland, and calls for short-term Army capability to fill gaps in cruise missile defenses.
Key Senate Republicans are pushing longshot legislation that would require Congress to sign off on President Donald Trump’s import tariffs, a rare attempt to stand up to the administration on a bedrock issue that once defined the GOP. Congressional Republicans are mostly at odds with what they view as Trump’s protectionist instincts on trade. Despite much hand-wringing, prospects for any bill to challenge the president remain uncertain.
Six states — Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey and Washington state — have active legislation to establish a Medicaid buy-in program. In four others, bills were proposed but stalled.
President Donald Trump is touting what he sees as his top accomplishments after 500 days in office. On Twitter Monday Trump says: “we have accomplished a lot – many believe more than any President in his first 500 days.”
China’s warning came after delegations led by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and China’s top economic official, Vice Premier Liu He, wrapped up a meeting on Beijing’s pledge to narrow its trade surplus. “Despite the potential negative repercussions for both economies, the risk of a full-blown China- U.S. trade war, with tariffs and other trade sanctions…
Ted Cruz, R- Texas, holds an 11- percentage point edge over U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D- El Paso, in the race at the top of the November ballot in Texas, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. Half of Texas voters prefer Cruz in his re-election bid, compared with 39 percent for O’Rourke, the poll says.
President Donald Trump’s hard-line views on trade, a staple of his message long before he entered politics, are beginning to collide with the cold realities of global geopolitics.
U.S. President Donald Trump is canceling the much anticipated summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump may have been referring to comments from officials like Choe Son Hui, who slammed Vice President Mike Pence for comments on Libya and North Korea. “Whether the U.S. will meet us at a meeting room, or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is…
Members of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors visited Congress as midterm fever sweeps Washington.
President Donald Trump is intensifying his pressure on the Justice Department by demanding it investigate whether the FBI infiltrated his presidential campaign. Trump made the demand Sunday amid days of public venting about the special counsel’s Russia investigation, which he has deemed a “witch hunt.” Just hours later, his lawyer said the special counsel has indicated that the investigation into the president could be wrapped up by September.
WASHINGTON- The Trump administration stepped back Sunday from a looming trade war with China, saying that it would refrain for now from applying major tariffs on Chinese goods in the wake of Beijing’s promise to ramp up purchases of U.S. products to reduce the trade deficit. He noted that the United States and China, the world’s two biggest economies, had made “…
WASHINGTON Melania Trump returned to the White House on Saturday from a weeklong hospitalization after kidney treatment, a lengthy stay that raised questions about whether the first lady’s condition may have been more complicated than initially revealed. “The First Lady returned home to the White House this morning,” Grisham said in a statement emailed…
The first lady has raked as much as $1 million in royalties from photos of herself since her husband took office, according to federal records. The 48- year-old former model revealed in her husband’s mandatory financial disclosure forms made public Wednesday that she received between $100,001 and $1 million in royalty payments from Getty Images last year.
House Republican leaders declared victory in a long-running dispute with the executive branch, noting a new settlement preserves a judge’s ruling that President Barack Obama reimbursed insurers unlawfully under the Affordable Care Act.
Melania Trump says she feels “great” after a kidney procedure. The first lady’s comments on Twitter on Wednesday were her first since being hospitalized on Monday for an embolization. She tweeted “a sincere thank you to Walter Reed Medical Unit” and to all of her well-wishers. The president is visiting Mrs. Trump for the third straight day.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and a group of fellow governors are backing President Donald Trump’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. McMaster and six other governors wrote to Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Berit Reiss-Andersen this week, citing Trump’s “transformative efforts to bring peace to the Korean peninsula.”
First lady Melania Trump underwent surgery to treat a benign kidney condition Monday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the White House said. Trump’s communications director, Stephanie Grisham, said the first lady had an embolization procedure, which starves the blood supply to the affected area. “The procedure was successful and there were no…
Israel braced for a day of clashes Monday, with the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and a massive Palestinian protest on its border with Gaza. The doors will open at 4 p.m. in a 90- minute ceremony led by U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan will also attend.
The federal government swung to a surplus of $214.3 billion in April, primarily reflecting the revenue from that month’s annual tax filing deadline.
Although the GOP repeal-and-replace mantra seems to have quieted, some Republican lawmakers continue efforts to get around the sweeping federal health law’s requirements. It calls for $65 million in loans and grants administered by the Department of Agriculture to help organizations establish agricultural-related policies modeled on “association…
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says moves by the Fed and other major central banks to raise interest rates after a long period of keeping them low should not be disruptive to the global economy. In remarks prepared for a financial conference in Zurich, Switzerland, Powell says that the role U.S. monetary plays in driving global financial conditions and capital flows is often exaggerated.
Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander said legislative efforts to stabilize the markets this year are dead and that it’s up to states and the Trump administration to provide relief from rising insurance rates.
Republicans, desperate to hold onto seats of retiring lawmakers, will learn Tuesday who their candidates will be in a handful of critical races across the country that will go a long way toward determining whether the GOP holds on to the House this November. Races in Indiana and North Carolina will also show which side of the GOP is ascendant— whether the party…
May 07– WASHINGTON– After a rocky start, President Trump and his newly reshuffled legal team unveiled a fresh legal strategy for determining if Trump will sit with special counsel Robert Mueller: Negotiate through the media. And former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the man tasked with carrying out the public negotiation, made clear that if he were making the call,…
President Donald Trump is set to give an address to the National Rifle Association just two months after he declared that he would stand up to the powerful gun lobby following a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida. But Trump later backpedaled on that tough talk. On Friday, he will speak to the NRA in Dallas in his fourth appearance in a row. This year’s convention comes as the issue of gun violence takes on new urgency after one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
When Republicans muscled legislation scuttling the health care law through the House a year ago, Democrats waved sarcastically and giddily serenaded them with chants of, “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey, goodbye.” Now, Democrats are trying to make good on their taunts.
Twelve months later Obamacare still stands— though its been severely wounded by the GOP’s move to repeal the individual mandate— and Democrats will ask voters in November to provide the embattled law a new boost. Democrats and their progressive allies say the weekend blitz serves a dual purpose— to extract a political price as they try to flip 24 GOP seats and…
President Donald Trump is pledging to quickly sign legislation expanding veterans’ access to medical care outside the Veterans Affairs system if Congress clears the plan by Memorial Day. Trump notes in a tweet Thursday that it’s been four years since a scandal at a VA hospital in Phoenix in which some veterans died while waiting for appointments. “We won’t forget what happened to our GREAT VETS,” Trump said.
The U.S. trade deficit sank 15 percent in March to $49 billion, its lowest amount in six months, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The exports in March set a record high– in part due to shipments of planes and soybeans ahead of pending China tariffs to retaliate for the United States imposing trade sanctions. Trump has also announced tariffs on steel and…
Congress is trying to pass a hefty rewrite of a banking law that bears Barney Frank’s name, but the former Massachusetts congressman isn’t worried. Frank says he’s confident Dodd-Frank will survive Republican efforts to dismantle it. He crafted the bill with a fellow Democrat, former Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, after the 2008 financial crisis. The GOP-controlled House has passed legislation to dramatically scale back the government’s oversight role, but the Senate bill is more modest.
These days, the battleground over the law’s fate has shifted, at least temporarily, from Congress to the states. Nineteen Republican attorneys general, plus Maine Governor Paul LePage, also a Republican, contend that Congress opened the door for their lawsuit when it repealed the penalty that most Americans have to pay if they don’t enroll in a health insurance…
The Federal Reserve is all but sure to leave interest rates unchanged this week, though steady economic growth and inflation pressures will likely keep the Fed on a path toward further rate hikes later this year.
John Kasich hinted again Sunday at a possible 2020 presidential run by ripping the Republican Party and declaring“ I can bring that party back.”. He also pushed back at those who have accused him of not being truly conservative, insisting,“ I didn’ t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me.”. Mr. Kasich, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2016 GOP presidential…
President Donald Trump is tweeting “KOREAN WAR TO END” after a historic meeting between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea. Trump is responding to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in South Korea. The two leaders pledged in a joint statement to rid their peninsula of nuclear weapons, but didn’t identify any specific new measures to achieve that. Trump is expected to meet with Kim Jong Un in late May or June.
Wells Fargo is the target of a Department of Labor probe on whether the bank has been pushing its customers to take their money out of low-cost corporate 401(k) plans and roll their holdings into more expensive individual retirement accounts at the bank, The Wall Street Journal reported.
AARP is not giving up on its fight to restore the Department of Labor fiduciary rule. The lobbying group will file an appeal to keep the rule, which was tossed out by a New Orleans court last month.
Millions of families living in federally subsidized public housing would have to pay more for rent under a Trump administration proposal. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is asking Congress to raise the rent paid by public housing residents to 35 percent of income from the current 30 percent.
Health insurers, patient groups and Senate Democrats implored the Trump administration to curb or cancel its push to let Americans get around the Affordable Care Act’s requirements by using cheaper, short-term health plans for a full year, saying the plan would destabilize the insurance markets and increase the number of uninsured.
The Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate requiring all Americans to have health coverage is about to disappear next year. But New Jersey is poised to slap it back on its residents.
President Donald Trump says the November elections are “a choice” for the country between Republicans who want to protect their signature tax cut law and Democrats he says “want to end them and raise your taxes substantially.” In a tweet Friday, Trump says Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi “is going absolutely crazy” over the law. On Thursday, she said the idea that economic growth would cover the budgetary shortfall from the corporate and personal income tax cuts “nonsense” and “BS.”
At the backdrop of increasing impressive performance of the global economy, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, Mrs Christine Lagarde, has warned of some dangers in the horizon, as world debt rises to $164 trillion. Addressing the media on the sidelines of the on-going Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group in Washington DC, United…
Federal regulators are poised to impose a $1 billion penalty on Wells Fargo for a variety of alleged misdeeds, including forcing customers to buy auto insurance policies that they didn’t need, according to people briefed on the regulatory action. The expected penalty, levied by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the…
April 19– WASHINGTON– In a sign of deep worry about secretary of state nominee Mike Pompeo’s confirmation prospects, President Trump and other Republicans launched a concerted messaging blitz against Senate Democrats and GOP Sen. The push came on the heels of the White House confirming news that Pompeo, the CIA director the president tapped to replace Rex…
Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Jeff Merkley of Oregon said the Choose Medicare Act is a good way to help individuals and businesses who’ve been left behind by the Democrats’ own health law or employer-based markets. Obamacare customers who qualify for subsidies could apply them to the Medicare alternative, offering the type of “public option” that Democrats…
WASHINGTON— The White House says a decision on new economic sanctions against Russia will be made soon— not committing to an announcement Monday that U.N. In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said:“ We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future.”. She said Treasury Secretary Steven…
The leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are set to unveil a bipartisan resolution authorizing the use of military force overseas. The proposal would accelerate a debate that Congress has been reluctant to have, but that’s taking on new urgency after President Donald Trump ordered airstrikes on Syria. The resolution is expected to revisit the broad authorizations Congress approved in 2001 and 2002 for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Of the $3.9 million Trump’ s committee spent in the first quarter of 2018, more than $834,000 went to eight law firms and the Trump Corp. for legal fees, according to new Federal Election Commission records filed Sunday. The biggest share of legal payments in the first quarter of this year– about $348,000– went to Jones Day, a law firm representing the campaign in the…
HOUSTON— Former first lady Barbara Bush is in“ failing health” and will not seek additional medical treatment, a Bush family spokesman said Sunday. “Following a recent series of hospitalizations, and after consulting her family and doctors, Mrs. Bush, now age 92, has decided not to seek additional medical treatment and will instead focus on comfort care,” spokesman…
The Republican National Committee has committed $250 million to a midterm election strategy that has one goal above all else: Preserve the party’s House majority for the rest of President Donald Trump’s first term. Facing the prospect of a blue wave this fall, the White House’s political arm is devoting unprecedented resources to building an army of paid staff and trained volunteers across more than two dozen states.
Experts say the scandal over Facebook user data misses a more fundamental question: Is the company really changing its relationship with users, or just tinkering with its insatiable appetite for data? Facebook’s latest round of privacy changes don’t address the core of its business model, which relies on users to share information that can be used to sell ads. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify to Congress starting Tuesday.
