fiscal cliff

Health care has been a major focus in recent budget battles. New legislation provides a temporary fix in payments for doctors, but it will be paid for by a decade of cuts to hospitals. And a program for long-term-care insurance won't ever get off the ground.

Even though the top four congressional leaders left their White House meeting with the president separately and silently Friday, they cast the hourlong encounter in a positive light back at the Capitol.

Means testing Medicare is one of the few areas where Democrats have shown a willingness to even consider the subject of spending less on the program. But not everyone supports that idea.

Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said President Obama is making a "serious effort" to work with Republicans. Just 32 percent said Republicans are making a serious effort to work with the Democratic president.

Democrats are worried that cuts to the program will go beyond the impact on the people it serves. It will also affect the Affordable Care Act, which calls for expanding Medicaid to as many as 16 million more people. The states are watching closely because the federal government has promised it will pay most of those additional costs.

As House Speaker John Boehner tries to work with President Obama to prevent automatic tax increases and spending cuts, he is taking heat from members of his own party. Some conservatives think he gave up too much, too soon in his opening offer.

The president and House Republicans continued to snipe at each other Wednesday over the impending set of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff. President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner later spoke briefly by phone for the first time in a week, according to reports.

If Congress fails to reach an agreement on tax increases and spending cuts this year, it will mean sharp reductions in a broad swath of federal spending, from defense and Medicare to education and unemployment benefits. Economists say the cuts would be a serious setback for the economy as a whole.