They're calling it the zombie in the budget. It's a long-term care plan the Obama administration has put on hold, fearing it could go bust if actually implemented. Yet while the program exists on paper, monthly premiums the government may never collect count as reducing federal deficits.

The federal government is taking on a crucial new role in the nation's health care, designing a basic benefits package for millions of privately insured Americans. A framework for the Obama administration was released Thursday.

Medicare's popular prescription program has an unsavory underside. It's an easy target for drug abusers seeking to feed their own addictions or sell painkillers for profit, congressional investigators said in a report released Tuesday.

Democrats are hitting the reset button on health care for next year's elections. Weary of getting pounded over the new health overhaul law, President Barack Obama and his party are changing the subject to Medicare.

The Obama administration has shelved a financially troubled long-term care insurance plan. Officials said Thursday the staff has been cut and it's an "open question" if the program will be implemented.

The number of young adults without health insurance has dropped significantly, a new survey finds, thanks to a provision of President Barack Obama's health care law allowing them to stay on their parents' plans.

Health care savings in President Barack Obama's deficit-reduction plan would squeeze future Medicare recipients, cut payments to drug companies and hospitals, and shift costs to states.

Republicans want to pull the plug on the health care overhaul they call "Obamacare," blaming it in part for the United States' ballooning budget deficit. But they're quiet when it comes to the Medicare drug benefit another massive health care entitlement, with unfunded future costs over $7 trillion.