Bloggers are pondering what’s next for health reform.

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey interviews Wisconsin Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen, who wants to file a lawsuit to block provision in the new federal health overhaul law mandating that individuals.

AEI’s Ryan Lirette points out that legal challenges to the individual mandate might not occur until 2014, when the mandate goes into effect, thus delaying  “the epic courtroom drama” that many people thought would be coming soon. 

Brad Wright points to conservatives’ “ObamaCare” phrase and wonders about a nick name for proponents of the bill to use, including the “Boehner Armageddon Act” and “What Jesus Would Do Act”.

Wonk Room’s Igor Volksy looks at some immediate changes and says, “the road ahead will be full of speed bumps and sharp turns, and this blogger will try his best to track the progress of implementation piece by piece. After all, ‘[f]ar from having ended, the war to make health care reform an enduring success has just begun. Winning that war will require administrative determination and imagination and as much political resolve as was needed to pass the legislation.’”

The Huffington Post has a slideshow of 18 immediate effects of the health reform bill.

The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn debunks a rumor that congressional members and staff will be exempt from the health law: “But the members themselves and the people who work directly for them are all covered. And, far from pointing out the problems of reform, it demonstrates its virtues: The politicians believe in it enough to entrust their own lives, and those of their families, to the new system.”

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein intervies former CMS director Mark McClellan to get his take on the new bill. McClellan says of the bill: “It’s an important step. We have to do something about the problem of access to affordable health insurance. The bill unquestionably does that. The provisions related to changing provider payments are significant in terms of their potential for reducing spending growth, though I’d have liked to see more of those steps.”

Speaking of CMS, President Barack Obama has yet to appoint a new director there.  The New Health Dialogue’s Joanne Kenen points to rumors that Don Berwick may be chosen next week, and that “For anyone who doubts that the Obama administration is committed to saving Medicare, to delivery-system reform, to controlling costs by improving quality — this is your answer.”

There’s a mix of topics as bloggers watch the dust settle following Democrats’ passage of a health overhaul bill.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza examines “what we know — and what we don’t — about the past, present and future of health care politics.”

The Treatment’s Anthony Wright says health reform will continue to be a big issue as the government begins implementation of the new law: “[T]he work under health reform continues… or rather, it explodes. Instead of being concentrated in Congress for just over a year, health reform will spur frenetic activity over the next five years across the nation, at both the federal and state level, in venues both legislative and regulatory.”

FiveThirtEight.com’s Nate Silver tries to make sense of post-health care vote polls: “If we take an average of the four polls that have been conducted entirely after the health care bill passed the House, rather (those from Gallup, Rasmussen, Quinnipiac and CBS), they average out to 43 percent in favor and 46 percent opposed. Those are numbers that I think Democrats would gladly take relative to where health care has been in the past, but it’s not exactly as though the bill has become wildly popular — nor is it likely to do so in advance of the midterms.”

Economist Uwe Reinhardt recommends documents on the blog Economix to help readers “wrap [their heads] around the health bill.”

Heritage’s Rob Bluey says the House health care reconciliation bill contains more taxes than the Senate version: “By signing the legislation, Obama already broke his campaign promise not to raise “any form” of taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year. The reconciliation bill adds even more taxes for Americans — an estimated $52.3 billion over 10 years, according to a new analysis from Americans for Tax Reform.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, defends his health care position on Critical Condition: “It’s regrettable that instead of examining the legality of their health-care monstrosity, the administration and its allies are simply going on a smear campaign. From one experienced legislator, let me give Washington one very important piece of advice: Don’t think you are right 100 percent of the time with everything you do. Arrogance and are a terrible mix, and one the American people will not support.”

Elsewhere, bloggers look at reports of harassment and death threats to lawmakers after the heated debate on the bill.

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey points to comments about harrassment from Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., who said he has experienced harrassment and thinks lawmakers publicly discussing them are “fanning the flames.” Morrissey says, “I think Cantor put this very well. Threats of political violence come from the fringes of American debate, and represent no one and no movement except the lunatics who make the threats. The ‘I’m getting death threats’ has become a tired meme in the American media, and a handy way for politicians to avoid the responsible accountability that mainstream Americans demand. And it’s not just Democrats who have indulged in that avoidance strategy in the past, although they’re certainly the culprits of the moment.”

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein thinks public officials should be careful in their framing of issues: “Nuts are nuts. But there is a danger to the sort of rhetoric the GOP has used over the past few months. When Rep. Devin Nunes begs his colleagues to say “no to socialism, no to totalitarianism and no to this bill”; when Glenn Beck says the bill “is the end of America as you know it”; when Sarah Palin says the bill has “death panels” — that stuff matters. … But you can’t count on people to simply cower when they’re afraid, or write letters to the editor. Sometimes, they fight. It’s a dangerous emotion, and high as the stakes are, public figures need to be a lot more careful manipulating it.”

And The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent writes, “The whole thing is reminiscent of the summer, when Dem officials worked hard to elevate the town hall “mobs” in order to blame the unruly behavior on GOP rhetoric. It’s unclear, however, whether that effort did anything more than create a general sense in the public mind that the health care bill was deeply unpopular, and it’s equally unclear whether the current effort will accomplish anything more than that this time around.”

The surge of energy and emotion on display across the blogosphere was echoed during President Barack Obama’s raucous bill-signing ceremony this morning.  But many bloggers are focused on some Republicans’ efforts to repeal the bill and whether successful legal challenges can be brought in the nation’s courts.

TPMDC reports that Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., unveiled his legislation to repeal the health bill this afternoon.

Insure Blog’s Bob Vineyard points to the repeal of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act in 1989 after beneficiaries complained bitterly about the program. He says that while much of the focus of the current health overhaul has been on changes affecting major medical care for people under the age of 65, ” it is almost forgotten that significant changes will touch Medicare participants. Most notably, some of the free to almost free Medicare Advantage plans that have been so popular will be eliminated. Will the torch and pitchfork crowd rise up again and force a repeal of Obamacare?”

Heritage’s Mike Brownfield looks at comments made by a few state attorneys-general yesterday and says, “The Heritage Foundation’s legal scholars have documented why an individual mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, noting, ‘Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to mandate that an individual enter into a contract with a private party or purchase a good or service.’ That fact, however, did not stop Congress from acting outside its authority. Now, it seems, states are taking up arms to defend the tenets of our Constitution that Congress has been so quick to ignore.”

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey links to a new Rasmussen phone poll on whether Americans want their states to sue the federal government over the individual mandate requirement in the bill: “Americans want tort reform, but ObamaCare has them so angry that they want states to sue to block it.  Only 37% oppose the idea, according to Rasmussen.”

But the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder thinks legal challenges are unlikely to be successful: “The chances of success in the Supreme Court are low, but the point of the lawsuits isn’t legal — it’s political.  It advances the politics of conservative jurisprudence, and the political ambitions of conservatives, and it keeps the legislation itself in a state of suspended political animation.” Ambinder goes on to examine recent legal findings that might be used to argue against an individual mandate, saying, “Congress believes that the mandates, by creating a pool of healthy and unhealthy folks, will help contain the cost of health care. That’s their intent; the court would be hard pressed to argue policy with Congress.”

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein thinks it won’t happen either: “When people think about the GOP’s threats to repeal the health-care bill, they need to think about the actual votes that Republicans would need, and when they would take place. In the short term, they’d need not just a majority in the House and Senate, and not just a supermajority in the House and Senate, but a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate because they’d need to override the president’s veto. In the Senate, that’s not even a plausible electoral outcome.”

And Time’s Jay Newton-Small thinks Republicans might want to drop the issue altogether: “Health care reform has been a rich vein for the GOP. Think back to the August town hall meetings and Sarah Palin’s death panels. Indeed, polls show the bill is incredibly unpopular – which is why Dems are more than happy to move on to jobs, the economy, and more jobs. But, keeping the bill in the forefront of news doesn’t come without risk to the GOP.” Newton-Small lists five reasons for Republicans to consider dropping their vocal opposition, including, “The ‘Party of No’ label.”

It’s been a tumultous week, capped by President Barack Obama’s announcement this morning that he is delaying a trip to Southeast Asia in order to focus on the health bills.

Heritage’s Conn Carroll thinks the move “proves, again, how desperate the White House is for the House of Representatives to pass the Senate health care bill before the Easter recess. The Obama administration knows the American people hate Obamacare and that after a week listening to their constituents back home, there is no way the House will take up the Senate bill again.

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein wonders, “What sort of guarantee does the House want from the Senate?”  

The issue, in this telling, isn’t that the House needs an assurance that the Senate intends to pass a reconciliation package. It’s that the House needs some assurance that the Senate intends to pass a reconciliation package that fulfills the House’s concerns. “One of our takeaways from this whole process is to never underestimate the power in the Senate for just one senator to jam up the works,” says the staffer.

But The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward reports that Dems might have another “trick” option up their sleeve: “It’s called the ‘Slaughter Solution’  (named for Rep. Louise Slaughter, chair of the powerful Rules Committee) … House Democrats have been searching for a way to alleviate members’ concerns that if they vote for the Senate bill and the Senate does nothing to fix it, they will be hung out to dry as having supported a piece of legislation that many across the country dislike… Technically, using the ‘Slaughter solution,’ they’ll never have voted for the bill they find odious, even if their vote on the reconciliation legislation will have been the vote that passed the Senate bill into law.”

Reason’s Peter Suderman has his take on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s week with the health bill: “To sum up: A procedural barrier was confirmed, an old issue-based conflict proved effectively unsolvable, another issue-based conflict flared up, and the president all but admitted that 1) his timeline was (yet again) unrealistic and 2) the votes to pass the bill don’t yet exist.”

Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky thinks things are still up in the air:  “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) won’t know if she has the votes until the last possible moment and there is certainly no guarantee that they will pass it.”

But Time’s Karen Tumulty is ready to predict: “After all the missed deadlines, I’m hesitant to say this, but here goes: Next week is the week. The House Democratic leadership now expects to schedule a vote on the Senate health care bill and send it to President Obama’s desk next Friday, March 19, or Saturday, March 20.”

There’s little consensus among bloggers about trends in public opinion toward the health care overhaul bills.

Pollster.com’s Mark Blumethal takes a look at recent poll data and concludes, “Any way you slice it, there does appear to be a real tightening of opinion on health reform although as always, these results are snapshots and subject to change.”

The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan comments on a WSJ op-ed by poller Scott Rasmussen that argued polling showed health reform is unpopular.  Sullivan thinks Rasmussen is correct, but adds a different vision of “reality” by saying, “And yet the latest YouGov poll, reflecting the direction of many others, now shows a majority favoring reform, 53 – 47, as I noted yesterday. And Pollster’s poll of polls, excluding Rasmussen’s outlier numbers, favoring the old, white and Republican, show a dramatic rise in support this past month, as the consequences of getting nothing at all begin to sink in.”

But The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle disgrees with Sullivan that Rasmussen’s polls are outliers, arguing: “Okay, first off: Rasmussen is an outlier on presidential approval, not on health care, where it has always been pretty much solidly middle of the pack, and occasionally kinder to the Democrats.  The YouGov poll is an outlier.  YouGov polls approval higher because it doesn’t offer a “don’t know” option, and people tend to be biased towards affirmative answers when they’re being polled.”

Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum thinks Pollster.com’s trends are correct. He tries to explain the shift: “What’s really important here, though, isn’t the magnitude of the change, but just the fact that the tide is shifting. This might have something to do with the recent summit and some of Obama’s more aggressive speechmaking recently, but my guess is that it mostly has to do with the fact that there’s an actual bill on the table now; Democrats have something concrete to sell; Republican obstructionism has been a little too screechy for a lot of independents lately; and, most important, it looks like we’re actually in the home stretch.”

In other news, the Congressional Budget Office released updated estimates for the Senate bill today (read CBO director Douglas Elmendorf on the estimates here), but the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein says while the bill is “a pretty good deal…it’s not a very well-understood deal.” According to Klein, voters don’t understand the portions of the bill that save money (like an excise task on high cost insurance plans) so “the projections that show the bill saving money don’t make much sense, and so voters don’t believe them.”

But Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey points out that the updated estimates don’t reflect Obama’s bill or the final package: “This isn’t the reconciliation parallel bill, of course, because as Nancy Pelosi notes, we haven’t seen that yet, and neither has the CBO. This recalculates the CBO’s findings from December, and now they see more federal spending in the first 10 years and slightly less deficit reduction.”