- GOP Health Bill in Shambles, House Commences Two-Week Break AP by Alan Fram and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar—The Republican health care bill remained in shambles Thursday as House leaders threw up their hands and sent lawmakers home for a two-week recess. GOP chiefs announced a modest amendment to curb premium increases, but internal divisions still blocked their promised repeal of former President Barack Obama's law. Ominously, lawmakers from both ends of the party who've opposed the GOP legislation said Thursday's revision wasn't enough to turn them around.
- Frustration Mounts, Careers Jeopardized Over Obamacare Failure Politico by Rachael Bade and Jennifer Haberkorn—House Republicans are no closer to passing legislation to repeal the Democratic health care law. Tempers are flaring at the White House over House Republicans’ failure to repeal Obamacare. But that hasn’t changed the reality on the ground: As Congress skips town for a two-week recess, Speaker Paul Ryan and his team are no closer to approving legislation. In fact, some Ryan allies worry that the White House involvement has only set GOP leaders back further.
- To Revive Health Bill, GOP Adds an Obamacare-Like Subsidy Bloomberg by Billy House, Zachary Tracer, and Anna Edney—At the prodding of the White House, House Republicans made a last-minute addition to their Obamacare replacement bill Thursday aimed at protecting high-cost patients as lawmakers leave Washington for their two-week spring break. The amendment to the bill adopted Thursday would create a subsidy for insurers that cover sick, expensive patients, and could help revive Republican lawmaking efforts to repeal and replace large parts of the Affordable Care Act. They also echo a key program under Obamacare, which like the GOP proposal uses subsidies to lower premiums.
- As Latest Health Plan Dies, Republicans Can’t Agree on a Culprit New York Times by Jennifer Steinhauer and Robert Pear—The new bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act is dead, killed off by House Republicans who never actually read the legislation—because in fact, it never actually existed. Conservative groups moved quickly on Wednesday to shift the blame for the failure of a seven-year promise to repeal the law onto some not-as-conservative Republicans, after a small but powerful group of hard-line House conservatives failed again to come to a meeting of the minds with the Trump administration over how best to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature achievement.
- Speaker Paul Ryan Says Republicans' Obamacare Repeal May Take Months USA Today by Craig Gilbert—A new push to pass a GOP health care bill will take months, not days, House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated Wednesday, as the latest talks among Republicans produced no apparent breakthrough. “We’ve got a couple months at least,” Ryan said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
