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Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) has some questions for the administration about health overhaul.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) has some questions for the administration about health overhaul.

And so it begins. The new Republican chairmen of a powerful House committee and its investigative subcommittee want Obama administration officials to explain exactly how they're implementing the health law.

It's the first of what's expected to be a long list of investigations that could keep Obama health officials busy gathering documents and testifying on Capitol Hill for much of the year.

The letter to Jay Angoff, head of the Office for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight comes from Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), and Cliff Stearns, (R-FL), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Enlarge Maggie Starbard/NPR

Just because this fruit's on the front of your food package doesn't mean it's really inside.

Maggie Starbard/NPR

Just because this fruit's on the front of your food package doesn't mean it's really inside.

Sure, blueberries are good for you, and they taste terrific. That's why food marketers make blueberry-flavored stuff.

But why is it OK to list blueberries on a package of something that doesn't have blueberries in it?

With dramatic sound effects and scary music, a video produced by natural food advocates at the Consumer Wellness Center points out that this kind of marketing can be deceptive.

As House Republicans prepared for a vote Thursday that resulted in passage of a bill to repeal the federal health overhaul, six states took another route to stop its implementation.

Attorneys general in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming hopped aboard a lawsuit seeking to overturn the law filed in a federal district court in Pensacola, Fla. The newcomers reflect "broad, nationwide concern about the constitutionality of this sweeping and unprecedented federal legislation," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement.

Confused about the new health law? You’re not alone. Over the past couple of weeks, All Things Considered asked listeners to e-mail questions. On Wednesday's show, I tackled some on the air. Here they are, with a few bonus questions and answers that weren't broadcast.

One question, by far the most common query, accounted for nearly half the e-mails we received. And for a hint, consider that the name of the Republican bill, H.R 2, is "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act."

Our friends over at Kaiser Health News had a cool idea we wish we'd have thought of first. They distilled Tuesday's debate on the House floor about H.R. 2, the Republican bill that would repeal the big federal health overhaul, into word clouds.

Now, at a glance, you can catch the drift of all the jawboning without having to actually listen to all of it. To make things a little clearer, the words "health care," some parliamentary niceties and common words were excluded.

Here's what the Republicans said:

Enlarge Kaiser Health News

Kaiser Health News

And the Democrats said this:

Enlarge Kaiser Health News

Kaiser Health News

Enlarge Alex Brandon/AP

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., dashing into a Capitol elevator, ready for a fight.

Alex Brandon/AP

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., dashing into a Capitol elevator, ready for a fight.

On NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats actually welcomed the GOP effort to try to repeal the new health law "because it gives us a second chance to make a first impression."

And so far, at least, Democrats seem to be taking that task seriously.

Rather than filling the airwaves with complicated policy-speak about what the law does and doesn’t do, Democrats are finally listening to the experts about how best to sell the health law. They spent the day Tuesday trotting out “real people” who are benefiting from the law and would be harmed by its repeal.

Look at your friends and family. Look at yourself in the mirror.

Chances are good that quite a few people in your social circle have health trouble that would make it a lot more expensive or impossible to get health insurance, according to an analysis the Department of Health and Human Services released Tuesday morning.

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Starting in 2014, insurers can no longer carve out needed benefits, charge higher premiums, set lifetime limits on benefits, or deny coverage due to a person’s preexisting condition.

AP

Starting in 2014, insurers can no longer carve out needed benefits, charge higher premiums, set lifetime limits on benefits, or deny coverage due to a person’s preexisting condition.

The report, timed to come out just as the Republican-controlled House moves ahead with a bill to repeal the federal health overhaul, estimates that as many as 129 million Americans younger than 65 have some sort of pre-existing condition.

Enlarge pshutterbug/Flickr

For all its charms, Maine may not be the most hospitable place for health officials.

pshutterbug/Flickr

For all its charms, Maine may not be the most hospitable place for health officials.

Lawmakers in a handful of states have introduced legislation that would criminalize PPACA.

No, that's not the acronym for a designer street drug or racketeering syndicate — it's the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the new federal health law, that they're talking about.

iStockphoto.com

Developed countries are struggling with a stark economic fact: spending on health care is growing faster than their economies.

That's not sustainable, but it's not easy to fix either. Dr. Richard Smith, former editor of BMJ and current blogger over there, takes a look at the problem and reminds everyone that spending more on health care, after a certain point, doesn't do much good. It may even do harm.

As the economy continues to limp along, individuals on the lookout for health insurance don't have a lot of options, especially if they have health problems. Of course, there are the pre-existing condition insurance plans called for in the health overhaul law, but those have restrictions. And some states have plans guaranteeing coverage.

Enlarge CW Lawrence/iStockphoto.com

Self-employed people without insurance should put a ring on it, some say.

CW Lawrence/iStockphoto.com

Self-employed people without insurance should put a ring on it, some say.

There's another option and it's based on the premise that there's strength in numbers. If individual business owners bring their spouse or another person on board as an employee, insurers may have to issue them health coverage — a helpful little loophole.

Enlarge Hermann J. Knippertz/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Cocoa beans like these can be sprayed with pesticides like sulfuryl fluoride.

Hermann J. Knippertz/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Cocoa beans like these can be sprayed with pesticides like sulfuryl fluoride.

After years of pressure from environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to ban sulfuryl fluoride by 2014.

Sulfuryl fluoride is used to fumigate places where food is stored, and the stuff gets sprayed on grains, dried fruit, coffee, cocoa beans and nuts.

All the children are above average in Lake Wobegon. And that’s fine and dandy according to Garrison Keillor, who speaks fondly of that fictional place on A Prairie Home Companion.

But in a recent letter, a key congressional advisory panel is urging the agency that oversees Medicare not to treat all health insurers like they are above average.

Now that panel — MedPac — doesn’t mention Lake Wobegon by name, of course. But in a strongly-worded letter, it says that not every insurer running a Medicare Advantage plan deserves a bonus.

As the Republican-controlled House prepares to begin debate Friday morning of a bill that would repeal health overhaul, the administration has thrown down the gauntlet.

Thursday night the Obama administration put out a four-paragraph statement against H.R. 2, aka "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." You can skip to the last sentence, underlined so you won't miss it:

If the President were presented with H.R. 2, he would veto it.

Now, it's probably not going to come to a veto. Even if the House moves ahead with a test vote today and passes the measure as soon as next week, there's still a Democratic majority in the Senate to stop it.

Because we don't come across these every day, though, here's the statement in its entirety.

OMB

Statement of Adminstration Policy

With the debate over health overhaul back in full force, we figured it's time to take another look at some of the claims being thrown around by Republicans and Democrats about the effect of the law and what might happen if it's repealed.

CLAIM: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on NBC's Today Show:

Enlarge Evan Vucci/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. in her office on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Evan Vucci/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. in her office on Capitol Hill in Washington.

We found out that the bill is costing far more than we were told it was going to, and its now working to increase people's health care premiums, their private premiums, at astounding rates.

FACTS: The Congressional Budget Office, the official arbiter for the cost of legislation, said Thursday in a preliminary estimate that repealing the law would actually increase the deficit more than it thought last year, meaning the law actually saved more money. According to the CBO, a repeal would add "in the vicinity of $230 billion" to the deficit between 2012 and 2021, and more in the decade after that. Premium increases last year did go up substantially for many people, but most were due to rising medical costs, not the new health law.

A health reform office charged with overseeing the insurance industry is about to be folded into the federal Medicare agency, signaling a major organizational shift just months after the office was created.

Health officials made the announcement to staffers Wednesday, officials at both the Medicare and insurance oversight agencies told Shots. Donald Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, attended the meeting.

The Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight was created to guide the implementation of key parts of the health overhaul law. Its director, Jay Angoff, a class-action litigator who took on insurance companies, was appointed to lead the group in April.