WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Companies are cutting healthcare costs further amid a continuing sour economy, scaling back benefits and shifting a greater share of the expense to employees. The findings, published on Thursday, come as the congressional campaign heats up over the nation's stagnant economic growth and whether recently passed healthcare reforms should be repealed. Such steps may be keeping the ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. companies are cutting healthcare costs further amid a continuing sour economy, scaling back benefits and shifting a greater share of the expense to employees. The findings, published on Thursday, come as the U.S. congressional campaign heats up over the nation's stagnant economic growth and whether recently passed healthcare reforms should be repealed. Such steps ...

Allergan, the maker of the popular anti-wrinkle treatment Botox, said Wednesday it had agreed to pay 600 million dollars to settle a US probe into illegal marketing for so-called off-label uses. The company said in a statement it agreed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor "misbranding" charge covering the period 2000 through 2005 and pay the government 375 million ...

Allergan, the maker of the popular anti-wrinkle treatment Botox, said Wednesday it had agreed to pay 600 million dollars to settle a US probe into illegal marketing for so-called off-label uses. The company said in a statement it agreed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor "misbranding" charge covering the period 2000 through 2005 and pay the government 375 million ...

Gov. Brian Schweitzer, cooking up a new plan to get cheaper prescription drugs for state residents, said he wants to let every Montanan get discounted medicine through Medicaid. It's the latest idea from Schweitzer to either import cheaper name-brand prescriptions or to otherwise ...

Instead of saying thanks, some residents rebuked Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Max Baucus on Monday for the very law that could help potentially thousands of asbestos victims here. The health care reform law passed last year expands Medicare coverage for the sick residents of Libby, where years of asbestos pollution from a vermiculite mine made this the nation ...

Once again bypassing a gridlocked Senate, President Barack Obama acted Thursday to install three agency officials and a diplomat whose nominations had stalled amid election-year squabbling. In a statement released shortly after he arrived here for vacation, Obama said the partisanship left him no choice but to resort ...

Seniors will see a modest increase in their Medicare prescription premiums next year but benefits will also improve, federal health officials said Wednesday. The average monthly premium charged by Medicare drug plans for standard coverage will rise to an estimated $30 in 2011, an increase of $1 over ...

A check from Uncle Sam gets your attention, even if the money doesn't help that much with the bills. More than 750,000 Medicare recipients with high prescription costs each got a $250 government check this summer, and 3 million-plus more checks are going ...

Advocacy groups have asked federal officials to investigate last month's distribution of a list of 1,300 purported illegal immigrants in Utah. The organizations asked regional Food Stamp and Medicaid program administrators in a letter Friday to respond publicly to the privacy breach and to offer training to state employees on federal privacy laws. "Nobody is going to apply ...