HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Time's up. It’s deadline day for the repair of HealthCare.gov, a psychological milestone that could revive confidence in the embattled health law or send it into a political tailspin. The administration is taking pains to not characterize Saturday as a deadline. The site, officials acknowledge, will still struggle at times. Repairs and upgrades will go on for months.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: The Obama administration is delaying yet another aspect of the health care law, putting off until next November the launch of an online portal to the health insurance marketplace for small businesses. The move, announced Wednesday, was needed because repairs are still underway to the troubled HealthCare.gov website, which is the primary way for individuals to apply for insurance.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: White House officials, fearful that the federal health care website may again be overwhelmed this weekend, have urged their allies to hold back enrollment efforts so the insurance marketplace does not collapse under a crush of new users. At the same time, administration officials said Tuesday that they had decided not to inaugurate a big health care marketing campaign planned for December out of concern that it might drive too many people to the still-fragile HealthCare.gov

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: HealthCare.gov experienced an "unscheduled outage" for about an hour Monday morning, an Obama administration official confirmed Monday, but the administration maintains that the federal website, which serves as the portal for the Obamacare marketplaces in 36 states, will work for the "vast majority" of users by next week.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: The Affordable Care Act is good for young adults because it’ll save them money on health care, leaving them more to spend on liquor and birth control. That’s one way to interpret the message from a provocative new ad campaign in Colorado. Not everyone is thrilled with it. One of the ads shows a college student doing a keg stand with a pretty big picture of a keg. Alcohol features prominently in several ads in the campaign. They all encourage young people to learn more about the federal health care law.  Two nonprofit groups in Denver put them together, ProgressNow Colorado Education and Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. They say they only had about $5,000 to spend and wanted to grab some eyeballs on social media.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: The Obama administration said Friday that it would give people eight more days, until Dec. 23, to sign up for health insurance coverage that takes effect on Jan. 1 under the new health care law. The administration also said it would delay the 2015 insurance enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act by a month, pushing it beyond the 2014 elections.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Last week, the nation’s leading heart organizations released a sweeping new set of guidelines for lowering cholesterol, along with an online calculator meant to help doctors assess risks and treatment options. But, in a major embarrassment to the health groups, the calculator appears to greatly overestimate risk, so much so that it could mistakenly suggest that millions more people are candidates for statin drugs.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Remember when President Obama said, "If you like your health plan you can keep it?" Now it's more like, "If you like your health plan you can keep it — for another year, and only if your insurance company says it's OK." It's not clear whether the administration's proposal to let insurers extend the policies they've been cancelling for the past couple of months will solve the president's political problem. But it's sure not going over very well with the insurance industry.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Bowing to pressure, President Barack Obama on Thursday announced changes to his health care law to give insurance companies the option to keep offering consumers plans that would otherwise be canceled. The administrative changes are good for just one year, though senior administration officials said they could be extended if problems with the law persist. Obama announced the changes at the White House.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Facing dissent from his own party and growing pressure from anxious Congressional Democrats, President Obama is to propose an administrative fix today to a central element of his signature health care law, allowing Americans who are losing their health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act to retain it.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: The Obama administration has ruled that neither the Affordable Care Act federal insurance exchange nor the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low-income people are “federal health care programs.” The surprise decision exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare.

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Today marks one month since the disastrous start of Healthcare.gov, the seriously impaired federal health insurance marketplace. And what a month it's been!

HCR Update from Mark Sanna: A new rule will now permit employers to let Flexible Spending Account plan participants roll over up to $500, the Treasury Department said Thursday. Some plan sponsors may be eligible to start letting workers carry over the money at the end of this year. Others may have to wait until next year to start offering the feature.