House Republicans have introduced separate bills aimed at scaling back the Internal Revenue Service's involvement with implementation of ObamaCare.

Reps. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.) said their bills are needed in the wake of the IRS's confirmation that it applied extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Forbes called that a form of "bullying" by the IRS, and said it's a reason why Congress should approve his bill, which would prohibit the hiring of any new IRS officials to implement ObamaCare.

Voting to repeal, over and over

Retiree health costs get cheaper

Cloning, stem cells long mired in legislative gridlock

The House will vote Thursday to repeal President Obama's healthcare law. Spoiler alert: The bill will pass. The healthcare law will not be repealed.

The real question surrounding Thursday's vote is whether it will open the door to a more targeted focus on specific provisions in the healthcare law, such as the tax on medical devices or the controversial new panel tasked with slowing the growth in Medicare spending. 

The vote on full repeal was scheduled after Republican leaders had to pull a bill to reprogram money from one part of ObamaCare to another. Conservatives feared they would be seen as trying to fix the healthcare law rather than waging a futile campaign to repeal it entirely, and said freshmen needed a chance to vote on full repeal before they were asked to support partial measures.

Conservatives still oppose the bill GOP leaders had to pull, but say freshmen might be better able now to support bills aimed at other specific provisions.

The rule: The House Rules Committee has chosen to bring the repeal bill to the floor Thursday under a closed rule, which prohibits amendments. The two sides will debate for two hours before the vote. One motion to recommit will be permitted.

No new score: Without releasing new figures, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday that the repeal bill will increase the budget deficit. Read about that notice, which cited last year's estimate, at Healthwatch.

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The Senate confirmed President Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

On Wednesday, the Senate voted 91-7 for Marilyn Tavenner to lead CMS, which hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed administrator in seven years.

House Republicans are jumping on the recent woes of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and tying the agency's credibility to its forthcoming role in implementing President Obama's healthcare reform.

Republicans have said the recent revelation that IRS officials had targeted conservative groups leaves the agency with no credibility.

A House panel on Wednesday advanced legislation along party lines to increase the tracking of prescription drugs.

The Safeguarding America's Pharmaceuticals Act of 2013 requires the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to propose new rules to keep consumers safe from counterfeit prescriptions, but stops short of forcing regulators to finalize those rules.

The Obama administration is taking steps to codify looser regulations on "smart pills" that transmit messages from inside a patient's stomach.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is formally classifying the miniature medical device in a way that relaxes the government's control over the technology. The device can be attached to pills and send time-stamped messages about how drugs are being ingested.

The CBO refused to provide a new estimate, but said scrapping the law's taxes and spending cuts would outweigh the reforms' costs.