Maggie Mahar provides a round-up of some of the most provocative healthcare posts of the past two weeks in this edition of Health Wonk Review.

Last week, President Obama signaled that he is ‘open to making modest adjustments to programs like Medicare.’ Should seniors brace for bad news? No. There are many ways to cut Medicare spending without drawing blood. It’s a matter of using a scalpel, not an axe, to trim the fat.

Health reform critics claim Americans will soon feel “sticker shock” over climbing health premiums, but Maggie Mahar says they aren’t telling the whole story … and that coverage will actually cost less for many small firms and individuals.

If you haven’t caught this week’s edition already, Saturday morning’s as good a time as any to grab a cup of coffee – or eggnog – and drink in the Health Wonk Review. It’s posted this week over at Workers’ Comp Insider, and it features a stocking full of posts – one each, actually – from 16 different health policy blogs.

Being what it is, Health Wonk Review is chock full of great blog posts – including a handful of them addressing the issue nearest and dearest to our hearts at healthinsurance.org: health reform.

If you haven’t yet had a chance to check out the most recent edition of Health Wonk Review, no worries: it’s still live over at HealthBeat. Maggie Mahar, who blogs regularly here, hosted this week’s edition, and spared no ink … uh pixels … in reviewing a nice collection of election-related health policy blogs. Her [...]

In 2014, 12 million Americans will begin purchasing health insurance in the new marketplaces known as “exchanges.” Some are now uninsured and will be gaining coverage for the first time. Others have insurance through a small employer, or purchase their own policies. But few have the comprehensive coverage that will be available in the Exchanges [...]

Mitt Romney’s web site makes a bold promise: ‘On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all 50 states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible.’

Many of Romney’s supporters assume that this is what will happen if he wins. But in truth, even if Republicans take both the White House and the Senate, Romney wouldn’t have the power to ‘repeal the full legislation.’ Nor could a new president grant waivers that would let states ignore the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We live in a nation ruled by law, not magic wands.”

We almost forgot to remind you that the latest edition of Health Wonk Review hit the virtual stands on Wednesday over at Wing of Zock. Fortunately, it’s filled with plenty of great articles that aren’t yet past their wonkspiration date.

The latest edition of Health Wonk Review is on the virtual stands over at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. As usual, it’s chock full of compelling health policy wonkery from HWR’s usual gang of respected contributors.

“Ted Kennedy’s speech at the 1980 Democratic convention still echoes in my mind. It remains the finest, most inspiring political oration that I have ever heard … this was a full-hearted, rousing speech delivered by a man who realized that in the battle ahead, the issues at stake were far, far more important than his own loss. Intuitively, he knew that the country had reached a turning point.” – Maggie Mahar

The July 19 edition of Health Wonk Review is up over at Worker’s Comp Insider, and this week’s reviewer, Julie Ferguson, says it’s a sizzler.

Inevitably, opponents of the Affordable Care Act will continue to hunt for ways to undermine reform, says Washington & Lee law professor Timothy Jost, though “they may be shooting themselves in the foot.”

The media picked up the story, repeated the heated rhetoric, and “fanned the flames … Before long, what constitutional experts thought was a non-story became a Supreme Court case.”

I was not entirely surprised by the Court’s decision. Indeed, on March 26, the day that the Supreme Court began to hear oral arguments, I wrote about why I felt the law would not be overturned by the Court.

If the Supreme Court overturns the individual mandate that would require most Americans to buy insurance, it may rule that if everyone doesn’t have to buy insurance, insurance companies shouldn’t have to insure everyone.

This week’s Health Wonk Review features columns from healthinsurance.org bloggers Maggie Mahar, Harold Pollack, and Henry Aaron. They discuss the pending SCOTUS decision, the 2012 elections and what both will mean to the health reform law.

The goal of the mandate is to draw more healthy people into the insurance pool, so that the cost of care when we become sick can be spread over a larger group. But the mandate is only one of many provisions in the PPACA that makes health insurance more attractive and more affordable.

This week, Maggie Mahar edits the Health Wonk Review, a biweekly compendium of the best of the health policy blogs.

As Rachel Maddow observed last night: this case was “built up as the Super Bowl of American partisan politics.” Thus, the Supreme Court was left with little choice: it had to hear “The Case of the Century.”