Federal health officials are calling for new attention on suicide in middle age after finding that more U.S. adults are taking their own lives.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported Thursday that the rate of middle-aged suicide has risen "substantially" in the last decade and now surpasses the rate of car crash deaths.

The agency speculated that the recent economic downturn and the wider availability of opioid prescription drugs may be responsible for the trend.

Twenty-one California Democrats have asked the Obama administration to investigate reports that mental health centers in Nevada are dumping their mental patients across state lines.

The letter, led by Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), is a response to a Sacramento Bee story that said Nevada clinics are putting psychiatric patients on buses with one-way tickets to California. They noted reports that as many as 1,500 patients have been dumped, which also burdens California with treatment costs.

The American public handed over 371 tons of prescription drugs to the government this past weekend.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) collected the unused, expired and unwanted pharmaceuticals, equaling about nine tractor-trailer trucks, from more than 5,800 nationwide locations as part of its sixth scheduled National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day.

Saturday's haul collected 50 percent more pills than the previous event, which the agency pointed to as a sign of support for the program.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) embraced ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion on Thursday, another win for the Obama administration.

Tomblin is the 26th governor to back expansion of the low-income health program, though only about 20 states have actually pushed it through their legislatures.

Tomblin said the Medicaid expansion makes sense for his state — as long as the federal government lives up to its end of the bargain.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is doubling down against ObamaCare this week with a new petition drive against the law.

The GOP is preparing to deliver signatures of people who want ObamaCare "exemptions" to federal Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The campaign also mentions allegations that congressional Democrats have tried to exempt Capitol Hill from the law. 

A group of small businesses filed a new legal challenge Thursday to the insurance subsidies in the healthcare law.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is intensifying calls for Democrats to admit "flaws" in the Affordable Care Act as the law takes effect.

McConnell penned an op-ed on ObamaCare for the second time in two weeks, urging leaders who supported the law to "own up to its consequences in a very public fashion."

"Democrats owe it to their constituents to be as open and honest about the consequences of this law as they are with White House officials in private," McConnell wrote Thursday in the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Regulators are investigating a tip about government action that coincided with a surge in healthcare stocks.

Study: No big health gains from expanding Medicaid

Florida runs out of time on Medicaid

Lawyers: IRS deals employers a setback in healthcare rules