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Washington (CNN) — The Obama administration raised the stakes in the health care debate Monday, releasing a new blueprint that seeks to bridge the gap between measures passed by the Senate and House of Representatives last year.

If enacted, the president’s sweeping compromise plan would constitute the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid more than four decades ago. The White House said it would extend coverage to 31 million Americans.

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Washington (CNN) — The day before the White House’s bipartisan summit on health care reform, there didn’t appear to be much mood for compromise on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Chris Dodd, a key author of the Senate health care bill, said flatly Wednesday that if Republicans continue to demand that Democrats scrap their health care proposals and start over, “then there’s nothing to talk about.”

“If you expect me to start all over on this, there’s really not much point in this, ’cause we’re not going to start over,” Dodd said.

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Washington (CNN) — Michelle Obama expressed confidence Tuesday that Congress will enact some sort of change to improve the nation’s health care system.

“We don’t have a choice,” the first lady told CNN’s Larry King in an interview that aired Tuesday night. “When we look at these statistics, we’re spending billions of dollars on preventable diseases, and new health care legislation could go a long way to improving prevention, first and foremost.”

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama conceded Friday that his health care overhaul ran into “a little bit of a buzz saw” but insisted he will push ahead with a comprehensive remake of the system. For all the president’s defiance, a senior Senate Democrat suggested Congress slow it down, a sign of eroding political will.

Addressing a town hall meeting in Elyria, Ohio, Obama offered a full-throated defense of his signature domestic issue, which threatens to stall in Congress after Massachusetts voters denied Democrats their filibuster-proof Senate majority.

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WASHINGTON – Though reeling from a seismic political loss, House Democrats rejected the quickest fix to their health care dilemma Thursday and signaled that any agreement on President Barack Obama’s signature issue will come slowly, if at all.

Democrats weighed a handful of difficult options as they continued to absorb Republican Scott Brown’s election to the Massachusetts Senate seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy.

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Washington (CNN) — Union leaders, the White House and congressional Democrats have agreed to limit the reach of a tax on high-end health insurance plans that would help pay for a proposed overhaul of the U.S. health care system, union leaders involved in the talks said Thursday.

The proposed thresholds for taxing health plans will be raised from $23,000 to $24,000 for families and from $8,500 to $8,900 for individuals, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters. Dental and vision benefits won’t be counted toward that amount after 2014, he said.

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Washington (CNN) — As House and Senate Democrats try to merge two separate health care reform bills, a new national poll suggests that when it comes to paying for the legislation, Americans favor provisions in the House bill over those in the Senate version.

And a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday also indicates that most Americans don’t register either a strong negative or positive reaction to the bills.

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(CNN) — In the three weeks since the Senate passed its version of health care reform, Democratic leaders, the White House and rank-and-file members of Congress have been working behind the scenes to find common ground between the House and Senate bills.

Negotiations are expected to pick up as House lawmakers return to Capitol Hill this week. The Senate is back in session next week.

The two bills emerged after months of hearings, raucous town halls and rowdy protests. The House passed its version of the bill in November; the Senate voted on its plan Christmas Eve.

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WASHINGTON – Senior House Democrats have largely abandoned hopes of including a government-run insurance option in the final compromise health care bill taking shape, according to several officials, and are pushing for other measures to rein in private insurers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats told President Barack Obama in recent meetings they want the legislation to strip the insurance industry of a long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws, officials said.

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Arguments over the massive overhaul of the health care system — which congressional Democrats hope to pass by next month — are expected to keep shaking up the country long after the vote.

Congress’ plan could be the first legislation of its kind passed along strict partisan lines. In modern history, legislation of such scope — including Social Security in 1935 and Medicare in 1965 — has had at least some support from the opposition.