Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing is the assembly that we need to use to get pages created and published.  A sample is provided below:

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://moss"))
{
    using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
    {
        PublishingSite pSite = new PublishingSite(site);
        SPContentType ctype = pSite.ContentTypes["Welcome Page"];
        PageLayoutCollection pageLayouts = pSite.GetPageLayouts(ctype, true);
        PageLayout pageLayout = pageLayouts["/_catalogs/masterpage/welcomesplash.aspx"];
        PublishingWeb pWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);
        PublishingPageCollection pPages = pWeb.GetPublishingPages();
        PublishingPage pPage = pPages.Add("Programmatic_Test.aspx", pageLayout);
        SPListItem newpage = pPage.ListItem;
        newpage["Title"] = "Page added programmatically";
        newpage.Update();

        newpage.File.CheckIn("all looks good");
        newpage.File.Publish("all looks good");
    }
}

This is an easy way of automating creating & publishing pages in collaboration/publishing sites, especially when the need is to create/publish them at a larger scale.  I hope this tip is helpful!