Ironwood Cancer & Research Centers will break ground next week on a new two-story, 29,000-square-foot building in Gilbert that’s expected to open by the end of the year.

Arizona Regional Medical Center announced Thursday in a news release that it will close its Mesa location in May.

Arizona Regional Medical Center announced Thursday in a news release that it will close its Mesa location in May.

“With a labor participation rate of 63.3 percent, have the Democrats turned America into a third world country or a leftist utopia? Pardon the redundancy.”

Arizona legislators are under intense pressure to pass the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. They’re getting it from all sides.

Spurred by the pleas of a widow of a Department of Public Safety officer, Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation Friday to ensure that survivors of fallen police officers and others have taxpayer-provided health insurance for as long as they need.

Take Care Clinics at Valley Walgreens are expanding services and offering assessment, treatment and management for chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma and others, as well as additional preventive health services, according to a release.

U.S. Reps. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.; District 5) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.; District 9) were featured guests at a panel discussion Tuesday where they conversed on a host of national policies including the federal budget, immigration and fostering trade issues affecting the U.S. and Arizona.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the federal government operates 50 different programs for the homeless. There are 23 programs in housing, 26 for food and nutrition, 130 for at-risk youth. They also operate an astounding 342 programs for economic development, which government is notoriously bad at anyway.

On Feb. 19, President Obama publicly threatened to further display his executive incompetence. Out of a $3.6 trillion budget he proclaimed that as the executive who proposed the sequester plan and signed it into law as a “compromise”, he can’t find anywhere to cut 2.4 percent in future spending except by letting first responders and teachers go and cutting the benefits and services for those on Medicare. That’s a “cut” in the future increase and not a cut in existing expenditures.

Sorry, but Nancy Pelosi is wrong. We do have a spending problem and the heart of the matter is our inability to control medical costs. Spending on health care now consumes an astonishing 18 percent of our total economic output. Rising Medicare and Medicaid costs are the main drivers of our national debt crisis. Yet health care costs continue to shoot up relentlessly.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama had a simple message for Republicans in Congress: Do it my way.

WASHINGTON — Republicans warned Tuesday that President Barack Obama's second-term agenda would bring more tax increases and escalate deficit spending, vowing that they would guard against Washington-centric policies and help middle-class families rebound from years of tepid economic growth.

WASHINGTON — Uncompromising and politically emboldened, President Barack Obama urged a deeply divided Congress Tuesday night to embrace his plans to use government money to create jobs and strengthen the nation's middle class. He declared Republican ideas for reducing the deficit "even worse" than the unpalatable deals Washington had to stomach during his first term.

Immigration reform, what’s being “reformed”? All I see coming from President Obama, Hispanic activists and sadly our Arizona “Republican In Name Only” (R.I.N.O.) Senators John “Keating Five” McCain and Jeff “S.T.R.I.V.E. Act” Flake is 100 percent Amnesty.

WASHINGTON — Buying your own health insurance will never be the same.

I remember when I first came to Mesa in 2001, everything was booming. You couldn’t find a parking space at Wal-Mart and all the check-out lights were on and the lines were 10 shopping carts long. I just came back from my Monthly trip to Wal-Mart and was struck by how deserted and down-sized it has become. My Fry’s Supermarket had hordes and hordes of winter visitors, shopping carts full to the brim with top-of-the-line liquor and huge roasts. We “locals” dreaded going shopping. Now we go and there are just 2-3 lanes open because no one is buying anything. Full to the brim shopping carts are as extinct as the dinosaurs.

Social Security, when it began, wasn’t a bad idea. The problem is what it has morphed into. We should get back to the “safety-net” that it was intended to be in the first place. But any changes should be “fair” to everyone. SS is a good (not great) program for the poorer citizens, but it’s a lousy “investment vehicle” for the more affluent. We could start by freezing the “top” benefit payment, and only increase payments for those not yet at the maximum level, until everyone is receiving the current maximum benefit. At the same time we could slowly start decreasing payroll tax rates (at a revenue neutral rate) back down towards the 1% where SS started out at. This would increase everyone’s paycheck, raise benefits for those who need it, and after a couple of generations it would bring the SS program back to the safety-net that it was intended to be. And as for those currently receiving the maximum benefit, start by gradually lowering the tax rates on benefits until SS benefits are back to being tax-free, just like when it started out.

Mr. Purcell’s explanation of high Medicare costs are wide off the mark. America’s health care costs lead the world for a very simple reason, we’re the only developed nation that doesn’t carefully limit at least health care prices; some limit total spending as well. We spend about 18 percent of GDP on health care, compared to 8 percent for competitors Japan and Korea, and 4 percent for Singapore. Taking aggressive action aka our competitors would free up at least $1.5 trillion per year, though admittedly, also shatter a few free market shibboleths.

Can there be any doubt that it has become little more than a game, run by and for the wealthiest 1 percent and corporate CEOs?

Washington’s self-created “fiscal cliff” crisis has been somewhat resolved, which means we can continue ignoring the real fiscal crises that are dead ahead.

“Oh, the NHL lockout is over. And just when I had almost completely forgotten about hockey...”

Regardless of what you think about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called Obama Care, the delivery of healthcare in the U.S. needs a major overhaul. The focus should be on patients and on high value healthcare. That means doing what it takes to get better outcomes, better safety, better service at lower overall costs — a focus on value, not on volume.

WASHINGTON — Efforts to save the nation from going over a year-end "fiscal cliff" were in disarray as lawmakers fled the Capitol for their Christmas break. "God only knows" how a deal can be reached now, House Speaker John Boehner declared.