The “Party of No” was at it again on Tuesday. Republican congressional leaders expressed renewed skepticism about Obama's call for a bipartisan White House summit on health care reform and reiterated their demand that Obama toss out bills passed by the Senate and House and start from scratch. Senator Bernie Sanders called for a new approach. “The current strategy is failing. We have to stop being on the defensive," he declared. He told nationally-syndicated radio host Ed Schultz on Tuesday that he wants an aggressive strategy to roll health care reform, a jobs bill and energy legislation into a single piece of legislation that the Senate could pass in one fell swoop with 51 votes, using long-established Senate rules to bypass Republican filibusters. "It's going to be complicated, but one way or another we're going to have to figure out a way to go forward," Sanders said. Underscoring the need for health care reform was a report that California's largest insurance firm, Anthem Blue Cross, is suddenly raising premiums on some customers by up to 39 percent; more than 10 times the rate of inflation.

The Obama administration is demanding answers from the insurer. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius insisted that the company justify the rate increase in detail to her agency. "We need to make sure that companies are spending their money on health claims, not on overhead costs," she said.  The parent company, Wellpoint Inc., earned a record $2.7 billion in profits for the last quarter of 2009. Its quarterly sales grew to $19 billion, up 26 percent from $15.1 billion in the comparable 2008 period, Sebelius pointed out.

“Look,” Sanders said, “insurance companies are ripping off the American people from coast to coast. It is absolutely appropriate for the secretary of Health and Human Services to call them out on that.”