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Jo-Marie St. Martin, counsel to Speaker John A. Boehner and a ferocious defender of the rights of the House, quietly put the word out that the leadership was looking for potential lawsuit targets so it could challenge the White House in court. ... They settled on the health care law, now at the center of a little-noticed legal fight that could redefine the balance of power in Washington. A federal judge is expected to rule soon on whether the House can sue the executive branch for usurping its authority over spending — its vaunted “power of the purse” — in a case resulting from years of bitter struggle between the Obama administration and the Republican House over who controls which levers of power. (Hulse, 8/11)

HealthCare.gov has a new glitch that’s preventing some people who have lost their Medicaid coverage from getting a new Obamacare health plan through special enrollment. People who lose Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage are eligible to enroll in a plan outside of the regular signup season. But CMS has notified consumer groups that HealthCare.gov is blocking people from qualifying for a special sign-up window, even though they’ve indicated they’re no longer covered by Medicaid or CHIP. (Pradhan, 8/11)

The left-leaning Urban Institute, advised by former White House health officials, recommended Tuesday that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services allow states to partially expand Medicaid by covering people with income up to the federal poverty line, rather than 38 percent above the poverty line. The suggestion was one of several in a report that described ways to improve the 2010 health care law. The report was noteworthy not only because it occasionally strayed from Obama administration positions and contained implicit criticism of the law but also because it provided a glimpse of what some Democrats would do to change the law if they could. (Doshi, 8/10)

Dogged by technology failures last year that snagged at least 10 percent of customers, Colorado health exchange managers promised Monday that they’ll have a new streamlined IT system ready by Oct. 18, just two weeks before the Nov. 1 launch of the next open enrollment season. (Kerwin McCrimmon, 8/11)

Three Christian universities gained allies Monday in their battle against ObamaCare. Among their supporters: 16 state governments. Those states, along with a handful of other religious rights organizations, filed friend-of-the-court briefs to the Supreme Court supporting Houston Baptist University, East Texas Baptist University, and Westminster Theological Seminary. (8/11)