For a few weeks, health care reform was the immovable trunk in a political logjam. But new political talks might finally break that jam, just as health care analysts flood it with new data and debate.

The numbers show a counterintuitive trend: insurers are reporting larger profits, even as more and more people go uninsured. The five largest US insurance companies posted a record combined profit of more than $12 billion in 2009, according to a report, despite losing nearly 3 million customers in the down economy. Health insurer Wellpoint topped $2.7 billion in gains; meanwhile, its subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross, reportedly made plans to raise monthly prices by as much as 39% in California. US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described the increase as “difficult to understand,” especially given Wellpoint profits, and she used the incident to catalyze a follow-up report, which showed other drastic insurance hikes.

If anything is moving quickly in health care, it’s money. Health care spending went up 5.7% between 2008 and 2009, and it now accounts for 17.3% of the US economy, according to a new study. Analysts warn, however, that without health care reform the projected $2.5 trillion spent in 2009 could nearly double by 2019. And with increased dependence on Medicare and Medicaid, public health spending is expected to overtake private spending by 2012.

With prices and spending going up, researchers are also looking at system efficiency. However, even agreeing on efficiency estimates is proving tough. One source for analysis — the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care — was heavily criticized last week by Peter Bach, a physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The Atlas compiles Medicare data to compare hospitals’ efficiency, and many, including the White House, are using it to develop legislation. Bach instead describes the Atlas as a “map to bad policy,” citing flaws in its analysis, which he says makes hospitals that spend more automatically less efficient.

Cost and efficiency aren’t the only issues that reform is floating on. The questions of quality and access also matter, and the recently opened County Health Rankings shows just how wide health disparities are across the US. Any way you add the numbers up, this whole map — and America’s health — will look different if reform can make it through the pipeline.