2/28/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: The future of President Obama’s health care overhaul now rests largely with two blocs of swing Democrats in the House of Representatives — abortion opponents and fiscal conservatives — whose indecision signals the difficulties Speaker Nancy Pelosi faces in securing the votes necessary to pass the bill.

2/27/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: The main lesson to draw from Thursday’s health care forum is that differences between Democrats and Republicans are too profound to be bridged. That means that it is up to the Democrats to fix the country’s dysfunctional and hugely costly health care system.

2/26/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna If there was any question about how deeply divided Republicans and Democrats are about how to reshape the American health care system, consider that they spent the first few hours of President Obama’s much-anticipated health care forum on Thursday arguing over whether they were in fact deeply divided.

2/23/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: On Monday President Obama issued his own blueprint for a health care overhaul, challenged Republicans to come forward with their ideas and laid the groundwork for an aggressive parliamentary maneuver to pass the legislation using only Democratic votes if this week brings no progress toward a bipartisan solution. In laying out for the first time the details of what he wants in the legislation, Mr. Obama set in motion a new round of maneuvering intended to bring a bitterly divisive yearlong clash to a conclusion.

2/22/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: President Obama will propose on Monday giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, as he rolls out comprehensive legislation to revamp the nation’s health care system, White House officials said Sunday. The president’s legislation aims to bridge differences between the bills adopted by the House and Senate late last year.

2/19/10 HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: The White House will release a comprehensive health bill prior to the bipartisan summit scheduled for Feb. 25. The bill seems likely to include an individual mandate and a version of the excise tax on expensive plans, as well as subsidies for middle-class families to purchase insurance.

2/17/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: With the House and the Senate still at loggerheads over their health care bills, the White House hinted on Tuesday that President Obama might post his own bill on the Internet before the bipartisan health care summit he is planning for Blair House next week.

2/16/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: An agreement to tax high-cost, employer-sponsored health insurance plans, announced with fanfare by the White House and labor unions last month, is losing support from labor leaders, who say the proposal is too high a price to pay for the limited health care package they expect to emerge from Congress. But the White House is still urging Congress to adopt the excise tax as a way to help pay for health care proposals.

2/15/10 HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: As Republicans and Democrats claim to be searching for common ground in the health care debate, one idea that lawmakers on both sides seem to agree on is that health insurance should be sold across state lines. The change would increase competition among health insurers and provide consumers with a greater array of choices.

2/14/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: The American Medical Association got what it wanted when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid removed a provision from the Senate jobs bill. The plan, which the AMA opposed, would have extended a Medicare payment cut for seven more months. Other healthcare provisions were removed as well.

2/12/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: Anthem Blue Cross, the California health insurance company that was criticized by the Obama administration for raising its premiums, said Thursday that the increases of up to 39% were driven by rising health care costs. But Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of HHS, declared the explanation inadequate, especially in light of the profits made by Anthem’s parent company, WellPoint Inc.

2/11/10 HC Reform Update from Mark Sanna: Virginia took another step on Tuesday toward becoming the first state to enact legislation to exempt its residents from a central feature of President Obama’s health care plan: a requirement that everyone buy health insurance or pay a penalty. About two thirds of the states have some form of this legislation in the works, many of them constitutional amendments.

2/10/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: House Democrats, seeking to move forward with at least a component of their health care legislation, had planned to vote this week on a bill to repeal the limited exemption from federal anti-trust laws long enjoyed by insurance companies. But after a huge snowstorm over the weekend, and with another one rolling in on Tuesday afternoon, the House canceled all votes this week.

2/8/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: When Republicans take President Obama up on his invitation to hash out their differences over health care this month, they will carry with them a fairly well-developed set of ideas intended to make health insurance more widely available and affordable, by emphasizing tax incentives and state innovations, with no new federal mandates and only a modest expansion of the federal safety net.

2/8/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna President Obama said Sunday that he would convene a half-day bipartisan health care session at the White House to be televised live this month, a high-profile gambit that will allow Americans to watch as Democrats and Republicans try to break their political impasse.

2/7/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: Health care legislation in Washington may be stalled, but that has not stopped legislatures in more than two-thirds of the states from objecting to one of its central planks: a requirement that everyone buy health insurance. These measures, which are in various stages of ripening in about 36 states, could also pave the way for a major court challenge.

2/6/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, predicted on Friday that Democrats would succeed in winning passage of major health care legislation this year, and she described the bill as a core component of her party’s effort to improve the economy.

2/5/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: President Obama on Thursday evening presented his clearest plan yet to move forward with comprehensive health care legislation, saying that he wanted to meet with Democrats, Republicans and independent experts, lay out the facts for the American people and then, he said, “I think that we have got to move forward on a vote.”

2/4/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: Spending on health care consumed an estimated 17 cents of every dollar spent last year in the United States, representing the largest one-year increase since the federal government started tracking the number in 1960.

2/3/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna As if the message from Massachusetts were not clear enough, the Virginia state Senate passed a measure on Monday — with Democratic help — that would attempt to block any effort to make health insurance mandatory for citizens, a centerpiece of the Democratic overhaul now stalled on Capitol Hill.

2/2/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: On a YouTube post, President Obama said that “it is my greatest hope” that health care legislation be adopted “not just a year from now, but soon.” Yet he also referred to the effort in the past tense: “We came extremely close,” he said — a sign that the fate of the health care measure is now highly uncertain.

2/1/10 HC Reform Update by Mark Sanna: The question and answer session between President Obama and House Republicans last week seemed to offer a frank and refreshingly substantive debate. However there was not much new about their debate on health care. What would be different? If they acknowledged their shared goals and agreed on a bipartisan solution.