"The current plan to replace the Affordable Care Act would cut health care for our most vulnerable residents, including children, seniors and individuals suffering from opioid and heroin addiction. This will have a devastating impact for many Pennsylvanians."

—Gov. Tom Wolf  (D-Penn.)

• Trump Remarks Latest Evidence of Health Law Repeal Slowdown AP by Alan Fram—A House conservative leader called Monday for votes "as soon as possible" on legislation voiding and replacing the health care law, even as President Donald Trump's latest remarks conceded that the effort could well stretch into next year. "Maybe it will take till sometime into next year, but we are certainly going to be in the process," Trump said in an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that was broadcast Sunday. 
  
  
• Issues Facing Republicans in Replacing Affordable Care Act New York Times by Robert Pear—Ever since Democrats began pushing the Affordable Care Act through Congress more than seven years ago, Republicans have been trying to come up with an alternative. Candid conversations leaked from a conclave of Republican lawmakers in Philadelphia last month, and public comments since, show they are nowhere near agreement….What follows is a summary of the thorny questions with which Republicans in Congress are struggling.
  
  
• Ryan: Obamacare Replacement Coming 'This Year' The Hill by Peter Sullivan—Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that Congress's work to repeal and replace Obamacare will be finished "this year." Ryan was responding to a question about President Trump's comments on Sunday that "maybe it'll take till sometime into next year" to roll out a Republican replacement plan. But the Speaker said legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare will pass this year. When that legislation would go into effect that could possibly extend into future years, he added.
  
  
• One-Third Don't Know Obamacare and Affordable Care Act Are the Same New York Times by Kyle Dropp & Brendan Nyhan—A sizable minority of Americans don't understand that Obamacare is just another name for the Affordable Care Act. This finding, from a poll by Morning Consult, illustrates the extent of public confusion over a health law that President Trump and Republicans in Congress hope to repeal. In the survey, 35 percent of respondents said either they thought Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were different policies (17 percent) or didn't know if they were the same or different (18 percent). 

• GOP Ramps Up Effort to Transform Medicaid into Block Grants Wall Street Journal by Jennifer Levitz and Stephanie Armour—Congressional Republicans are stepping up efforts to overhaul how Medicaid is funded, a move that could reduce the funds states receive while giving states more control over the roughly $500 billion program.

• 'Massive Confusion' Abounds for Insurers as GOP Wavers on Obamacare Redo Kaiser Health News by Jay Hancock—Premiums for Obamacare plans sold by New Mexico Health Connections could rise as little as 7 percent next year, says Martin Hickey, the insurance company's CEO. Or they might soar as much as 40 percent, he said. It all depends on what happens in Washington. Such is the vast uncertainty about how the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress are approaching their promises to repeal, repair and replace the Affordable Care Act.  
  
  
• Trump Administration Weighs Obamacare Changes Sought by Insurers Politico by Dan Diamond, Jennifer Haberkorn And Paul Demko—The Trump administration is considering major changes to Obamacare that may help convince insurers to remain in the law's marketplaces while Congress drafts a replacement plan—but the proposals may also limit enrollment and increase costs for older Americans, according to documents obtained by POLITICO. 
  
  
• AARP Threatens to Sue Trump Administration over Obamacare Change The Hill by Peter Sullivan—The AARP says it would consider suing the Trump administration if it went forward with a regulation that would allow insurers to charge older people more under Obamacare. The Department of Health and Human Services is in the process of putting forward a regulation on "stabilization" of the Obamacare marketplaces, and The Huffington Post reported on Monday that one proposal in the regulation is to change the ratio set out under Obamacare on how much more insurers can charge older people compared to younger people.

• Obamacare Repeal Would Kill Millions of Jobs Nationwide McClatchy by Tony Pugh—It may not crash the economy, but repealing key provisions of the Affordable Care Act would certainly create job losses in every state. That's the consensus of a growing body of studies that suggest the economic fallout from the health law's partial demise would ripple through the entire economy, not just the health care sector. "When federal funds are cut, the results play out in the other direction, triggering losses in employment, economic activity, and state and local (tax) revenues," says George Washington University's Leighton Ku. 
  
  
• ACA Repeal Seen Thwarting State Addiction Efforts Stateline by Christine Vestal—In the three years since the Affordable Care Act took effect, its federally funded expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults has become the states' most powerful weapon in the battle against the nation's worsening opioid epidemic. Now, as Congress and President Donald Trump debate potential replacements for the law, governors, health care professionals and advocates for the poor are cautioning that any cut in federal funding for addiction treatment could reverse much of the progress states have made.
  
  
• The IUD Rush: Why Women Are Seeking Out Birth Control that Can Outlast a Presidency Washington Post by Lisa Bonos —The day after President Trump's inauguration, millions of women of all ages marched in the streets of major cities. In the past few months, there's been another, quieter march that's far more personal, yet still political. If you're not a woman of childbearing age or a health-care provider, you might not have noticed it. Since the election, women have been seeing their gynecologists and visiting Planned Parenthood offices specifically to ask about birth control. Why the rush? For starters, if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, as Trump has promised, contraceptives could get a lot more expensive. 

• HHS Pick Price Made 'Brazen' Stock Trades While His Committee Was Under Scrutiny Kaiser Health News by By Marisa Taylor and Christina Jewett—Health and Human Services secretary nominee Tom Price showed little restraint in his personal stock trading during the three years that federal investigators were bearing down on a key House committee on which the Republican congressman served, a review of his financial disclosures shows. Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen, described Price's volume of stock trades during the SEC inquiry as "brazen," given the congressman's access given the congressman's access to nonpublic information affecting the companies' fortunes.
  
  
• Tom Price Is Confirmed as Health Secretary New York Times by Robert Pear & Thomas Kaplan - The Senate early Friday approved the nomination of Representative Tom Price to be secretary of health and human services, putting him in charge of President Trump's efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. By a vote of 52 to 47, the Senate confirmed Mr. Price, Republican of Georgia, after a debate that focused as much on his ethics and investments as on his views on health policy.