President Obama's 2012 budget proposal squeezes healthcare payments for a broad cross-section of medical providers.

His fiscal commission called healthcare spending the nation’s “single largest fiscal challenge” and Republicans are angling to defund the law.

The broad desire in Congress to repeal widely hated tax reporting language in last year's healthcare law may yet run into a procedural hurdle in the coming weeks: the House/Senate reconciliation process.

According to a committee spokesman, the House Ways & Means Committee intends to mark up legislation next week to repeal the so-called 1099 language. That language requires companies and other entities to file 1099 forms with the IRS for all goods and services transactions valued at $600 or more.

But while a Ways & Means markup will move the repeal bill along, it's not yet clear whether the bill would move on its own, or be attached to some other bill.

Dems claim legislation prohibiting federal funding of abortion doesn't have the statement of constitutional authority required under GOP rules.

Republicans should shut down the government if necessary in order to defund the healthcare reform law, a major opponent of the overhaul urged lawmakers on Friday.

With a showdown looming over the spending bill to keep the government running past March 4, some Republicans are wary of allowing the government to shut down over their desire to defund healthcare reform. But the DefundIt.org memo sent to members of Congress opposing the law said they should stand their ground, arguing that they wouldn’t take the blame for the shutdown.

“Senate Democrats would be the ones shutting down the government,” the memo said. “House Republicans can give them all the appropriations they need to run federal operations, besides that for ObamaCare.”

Mitt Romney largely avoided mentioning healthcare during his address to conservative activists Friday in Washington.

Romney offered a sweeping critique of President Obama’s policies in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), but almost entirely avoided references to Obama’s biggest legislative victory, which conservatives want repealed.

Many of those addressing the conference have talked of the need to repeal “ObamaCare,” the name adopted by conservatives for the healthcare law.

The top Democrat and Republican on the House Ways and Means Health subcommittee reintroduced a bill Friday strengthening efforts to combat Medicare fraud.

The bill, introduced by subcommittee Chairman Wally Herger (R-Calif.) and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), would allow the health department to ban corporate executives from Medicare if their companies were convicted of fraud after they left the company. The feds could also exclude parent companies that commit fraud through shell companies.

The bill passed the House by voice vote last Congress, but an anonymous Senate hold kept it from progressing in the upper chamber.

"It is essential that we close loopholes that make widespread Medicare fraud possible by allowing these criminals a second chance to commit fraud," Herger said. "Medicare is already on an unsustainable path, and we must make every effort to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not wasted, to ensure that loopholes in the law do not allow hard-earned taxpayer dollars to go to waste."

"I hope that this year we can finally pass these important anti-fraud measures into law," Stark said.

Enrollment is up six percent while premiums are down six percent, Berwick told the House Ways and Means Committee.

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Eager to exploit an opening to attack the healthcare reform law, Republicans on Thursday touted testimony by Congress' budget scorekeeper that the law would result in 800,000 fewer people working.

Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf first made the projection last summer, but it didn't stop Republicans from circulating his Thursday comments during a House Budget Committee hearing as fresh proof that the reform law "destroys" jobs.

"The Verdict Is In: CBO Confirms New Health Care Law Will Cost Jobs," was the title of a Senate Republican Conference press release.

"CBO: ObamaCare Will Destroy 800,000 Jobs," was the headline from the National Republican Congressional Committee.