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Budget sequestration will curtail $3 billion in economic activity if cuts hit the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on March 1, advocates said Tuesday.

Advocacy coalition United for Medical Research (UMR) released new figures showing that the NIH supported more than 402,000 jobs and about $58 billion in economic output last year.

The group warned that if sequestration takes effect, 20,500 life science jobs would be lost along with $3 billion in economic activity. Read more...

"We are in the process of a dramatic shift in the marijuana policy landscape," Rep. Blumenauer said.

Baby boomers sicker than parents' generation, study finds.

Health law bars option out of maternity coverage.

Snyder to enter brewing Medicaid battle.

Former President George H.W. Bush was spotted Saturday night out to dinner in Houston, an encouraging sign after an intense hospitalization that lasted nearly two months.

President George H.W. Bush out to dinner Saturday night in Houston, first since hospitalization. #nbcnews… instagr.am/p/VUNFuBC0xN/

— Janet Shamlian (@JanetShamlian) February 4, 2013

Bush, 88, was discharged late last month after seven weeks of treatment for bronchitis, a bacterial infection and a persistent cough. For a time he was in a Houston-area hospital's intensive care unit, and treatment was expected to continue back at his private home.

Under the policy, states can apply for federal waivers to test programs designed to increase employment among welfare recipients. 

How the falling U.S. fertility rate is the root of many problems.

Providers flock to 'bundled' Medicare payments.

NFL joins with GE in effort to detect concussions.

House Republicans next week will pass three non-controversial bills dealing with children's and veterans' health, all of which were easily approved with bipartisan support by the House in the last Congress, but were then ignored by the Senate.

One of these, from Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), would continue a grant program for pediatric doctors that the Obama administration had proposed to scrap.

Emily Porter is leaving Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office for the Nickles Group, which counts Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Cigna and Medtronic among its health clients.

Porter has been a Boehner adviser since 2007 and currently serves as his assistant for policy, specializing in health issues and legislative strategy.

Her departure marks the end of a longtime career on Capitol Hill that included positions with Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and the House Education and Workforce Committee. 

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) signaled that he will withdraw support from any immigration reform deal that extends federal healthcare benefits to provisionally legal U.S. residents.

Rubio was speaking with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh Tuesday when he said that adding millions of new beneficiaries under President Obama's healthcare law would excessively strain the federal budget.

"If ObamaCare is available to 11 million people, it blows a hole in our budget and makes this bill un-doable," Rubio said, referring to a final immigration reform package. 

A group of Senate Democrats is pushing legislation that would protect consumers from dings to their credit score brought on by paid off or settled medical debt.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced Monday a bill that would prevent credit agencies from taking into account any medical debt that has been paid off or otherwise addressed, arguing that complex and sometimes opaque medical bills can wreak havoc on a person's ability to line up an affordable loan for years.

"Unforeseen accident or illness can happen to any one of us," he said in a statement. "We can’t change that fact, but we can change the law so that responsible working families aren’t hit with unfair credit reports for years after medical debt has been paid off.”