Benefits Manager

In an otherwise lean budget year, the House on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to boost funding to take care of the medical needs of the nation's veterans.

The Social Security Administration made $6.5 billion in overpayments to people not entitled to receive them in 2009, including $4 billion under a supplemental income program for the very poor, a government investigator said Tuesday.

Democrats controlling the Senate are vowing that any deal this summer to cut the deficit won't cut back benefits for people enrolled in Medicare.

Some Democrats are up in arms over a McKinsey survey reporting one third of employers will drop health coverage in 2014.

The latest version of Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker's plan to take away public employees' collective bargaining rights would be largely the same as what the Legislature passed in March, except local transit workers would be added to those who are exempt.

According to a report released Tuesday by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, employers are changing the design of their benefit plans to accommodate the needs of not just older workers, but multiple generations.

The Arizona Legislature adjourned a two-day special session Monday without voting on a proposal to keep 20 weeks of federally funded extended unemployment benefits flowing to thousands of jobless people.

Enrollment in high-deductible health insurance plans that can help consumers save for medical expenses climbed 14 percent this year and has jumped 87 percent since January 2008, according to the trade association America's Health Insurance Plans.