WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. poverty rate hit its highest level since 1993 last year with a record 46 million Americans living below the poverty line, according to a government report on Tuesday that depicted the grim effects of stubbornly high unemployment.

Underscoring the economic challenges that face President Barack Obama and Congress, the U.S. Census Bureau said the poverty rate rose for a third consecutive year to hit 15.1 percent in 2010. The number in poverty was the largest since the government first began publishing estimates in 1959.

WASHINGTON, Sept 13 (Reuters) – The number of Americans
living below the poverty line rose to a record 46.2 million
last year as the U.S. economy struggled to recover from
recession, the federal government said on Tuesday.

In a report that underscores the daunting economic
challenges facing President Barack Obama and Congress, the U.S.
Census Bureau said the national poverty rate climbed for a
third consecutive year. It rose 0.8 percent to 15.1 percent
from 2009, when there were 43.6 million Americans living in
poverty.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A key recommendation for medical coverage standards under the Obama administration’s healthcare overhaul may be issued later than a September deadline, according to the organization preparing the report.

The influential Institute of Medicine, an independent agency based in Washington, was given the task of recommending how to determine the basic health benefits for millions of Americans who will qualify for coverage sold through state-run insurance exchanges beginning in 2014.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government’s soaring healthcare bill will be high on the agenda of Congress’s new deficit-cutting “super committee,” which has been assigned the task of finding by November 23 at least $1.2 trillion in savings.

Few major structural changes are expected for the Medicare and Medicaid health insurance programs given the time constraints.

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s
soaring healthcare bill will be high on the agenda of
Congress’s new deficit-cutting “super committee,” which has
been assigned the task of finding by Nov. 23 at least $1.2
trillion in savings.

Few major structural changes are expected for the Medicare
and Medicaid health insurance programs given the time
constraints.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Three years before Medicaid is due to cover millions of uninsured Americans, state funding cuts may already be undermining how much care the government health program for the poor will offer new enrollees.

Two dozen states from California to Maine plan to cut at least $4.7 billion from their Medicaid plans following four straight years of budget shortfalls, according to data provided separately by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the consumer advocacy group Families USA.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With Medicare at the top of lawmakers’ fall agenda, Tea Party movement leaders hope to ignite support for Republican plans to transform the popular federal healthcare program for the elderly.

Thousands of Tea Party movement activists are expected to descend this month on town hall meetings across key battleground states as part of an intensifying campaign ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers were close to a last-minute $3 trillion (1.8 trillion pounds) deal on Sunday to raise the U.S. borrowing limit and assure financial markets that the United States will avoid a potentially catastrophic default.

“We’re very close,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican who is playing a key role in the debt ceiling negotiations.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers were close to a last-minute $3 trillion deal on Sunday to raise the U.S. borrowing limit and assure financial markets that the United States will avoid a potentially catastrophic default.

“We’re very close,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican who is playing a key role in the debt ceiling negotiations.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – At Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare, comparative research made physicians realize that inducing early childbirth in healthy women created unnecessary and costly risks for newborns.

Artificially induced deliveries had become an accepted way to make childbirth fit busy personal schedules. The practice has health risks, but the average doctor saw only one or two cases a year wind up in a neonatal intensive care unit.