In the News
After years of calling for the dismantling of "Obamacare," many Republicans have come to a stark realization. It might be all but impossible, politically, to do so while ignoring how it extended coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.
"If Republicans have accepted that everybody with pre-existing conditions are covered, that kind of dictates a lot of what you can and can't do," Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said, citing one of the key tenets of President Barack Obama's signature 2010 health law.
Most of Arizona's congressional delegation appears to oppose the Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, which is expected to face a key vote Friday. Democrats oppose the GOP's American Health Care Act outright, and most of the state's Republicans saw the plan as insufficiently conservative.
President Trump delivered his first speech to joint session of Congress last night. The president touched on many topics including securing the border, immigration and the health care system.
Freshman Arizona Democratic congressman Tom O'Halleran said the feel of the speech was more optimistic than earlier rhetoric. But, he was still disappointed, when it came to describing the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act.
Four members of Arizona's congressional delegation tweeted throughout President Donald Trump's speech to Congress on Tuesday night: Republicans Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar and Democrats Ruben Gallego and Tom O'Halleran.
Their reactions largely reflected their partisan positions.
Eager to help President Trump complete the 1,954-mile wall on the southern border, lawmakers are considering a financing plan that would tax the money that immigrants send home to Mexico and tap State Department foreign aid to the country.
House and Senate Republicans told the Washington Examiner that raiding those two caches of money would offset costs to taxpayers, a key demand of fiscal conservatives, and live up to Trump's promise to make Mexico pay for the wall.
The Trump administration has signaled support for a federal law to help terminally ill patients get access to drugs that might be their best hope but aren't fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It's a good cause.
The FDA currently allows "compassionate use" of experimental drugs in certain cases, and its statistics show that almost every time it is asked to let someone take a drug under that program, it agrees; in fiscal 2015, the applications numbered more than 1,200.
ne of the biggest post-election winners on Capitol Hill is Representative Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. This soft-spoken Texas Republican has become an unlikely warrior against dubious science used to justify costly federal regulations imposed on American industry, particularly from the Environmental Protection Agency. Over the past eight years, Obama-administration officials have blocked Smith's demands for more accountability and transparency at several U.S. agencies.
Intel Corp. announced a $7 billion investment Wednesday that the company projects will create 10,000 new jobs.
The company will use the $7 billion to complete its Fab 42 factory in Chandler, Ariz., Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said at a meeting at the White House with President Trump.
Krzanich said the decision to make the announcement with the White House was borne out of Intel's support for Trump's economic and trade policies.
The White House is giving a big boost to proponents of a federal Right to Try law that they contend would give terminally ill patients easier access to medicines that haven't won approval from the Food and Drug Administration.