"We can't stop this bill; Democrats alone don't have the votes for it. [But] we can help stop this bill by ensuring that, to the best extent we can, the American public understands the consequences of what this bill will mean for them and their families."

  —Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) 

• Health Bill Would Add 24 Million Uninsured but Save $337 Billion, Report Says New York Times by Thomas Kaplan and Robert Pear—The House Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act would increase the number of people without health insurance by 24 million by 2026, while slicing $337 billion off federal budget deficits over that time, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Monday. Republicans had been bracing for what was almost certain to be a bleak accounting of the legislation's projected effects. The American Health Care Act, as Republicans call their bill, was already facing widespread criticism from health care providers, some conservatives and a united Democratic Party.
  
  
• Five Key Findings from the CBO's Health Care Score The Hill by Peter Sullivan—The CBO analysis of the Republican plan to replace ObamaCare is sending shockwaves through Washington. Here are five key findings from the CBO report that is shaking up the Obamacare debate.  Millions of people would become uninsured; the effect on premiums would be mixed; out-of-pocket costs would be higher; the deficit would be reduced; and  major changes would be made to Medicaid.
  
  
• White House Analysis of Obamacare Replacement Projects Bigger Coverage Gap than CBO The Hill by Rebecca Savransky—The White House's internal analysis of the GOP's Obamacare replacement plan reportedly projects more insurance losses than the report released Monday by the CBO. The White House document, obtained by Politico, projects that 26 million people would lose coverage over the next decade under the GOP's health care plan, known as the American Health Care Act. It finds that 54 million people total would be uninsured in 2026.

• Budget Committee OKs Obamacare Repeal Over Objections from Conservatives USA Today by Eliza Collins—The House bill to repeal and replace Obamacare moved one step forward Thursday with a narrow victory in the House Budget Committee despite three Republican members voting against the legislation. The committee voted 19-17 to move the legislation forward. No Democrats voted for it. Reps. Dave Brat, R-Va., Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Gary Palmer, R-Ala., joined Democrats and voted against moving the legislation forward. The three lawmakers are all members of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of roughly 40 hardline conservatives who have criticized the bill in its current form, mostly on the grounds that it does not go far enough in repealing Obamacare and does not do so quickly enough.
  
  
• Health Bill Short of Votes, GOP Leaders Look to Trump AP by Erica Werner and Alan Fram—Short of votes for their health care bill, Republican congressional leaders turned to President Donald Trump on Thursday to wrangle support for the divisive legislation they hope to push through Congress before Easter. But Trump sounded more like he was at the start of a negotiation than ready to close the deal. And combined with opposition from Republicans of all stripes, the president's flexible stance suggested final passage of the bill could be delayed, potentially exposing the legislation to the same kind of extended public backlash that undermined former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act from the start.
  
  
• Trump Administration Shifts Away from 'Insurance For Everybody' Los Angeles Times by Noah Bierman—The White House shifted away from President Trump's stated goal of providing "insurance for everybody" on Tuesday, instead promising that the House GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare offers "more people the option to get health care." The altered tone from Press Secretary Sean Spicer comes as the bill faces new scrutiny.
  
  
• G.O.P. Senators Suggest Changes for Health Care Bill Offered by House New York Times by Jennifer Steinhauer and Thomas Kaplan—A day after a harsh judgment by the CBO on the House plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, nervous Senate Republicans on Tuesday suggested changes to the bill. They told Trump administration officials—including the health secretary, Tom Price—that they wanted to see lower insurance costs for poorer, older Americans and an increase in funding for states with high populations of hard-to-insure people.

• Low-Income, Elderly, and Disabled Likely to Be Hit Hard by GOP Medicaid Cuts NPR by Ashley Lopez—Many in Texas are keeping a close eye on the Republican bid to replace the Affordable Care Act. One of the big changes is how it would affect low-income people, seniors, and people with disabilities who get help from Medicaid. And people on both sides of the political spectrum say the Lone Star State is not going to fare well.
  
  
• Obamacare Repeal Could Hurt Rural Areas — A Key Trump Constituency Boston Globe by Astead W. Herndon and Victoria McGrane—Republicans from rural states increasingly are worried that their party's plan to replace the Affordable Care Act would inflict damage on vulnerable communities, especially the poor and middle-aged in isolated areas whose votes helped catapult Donald Trump into the White House. The concerns are a byproduct of this week's nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the GOP replacement, which highlighted multiple ways that the health care plan falls far short of Trump's campaign promise to keep Medicaid intact and to create a system that provides "insurance for everybody.'' 
  
  
• GOP Health Overhaul Puts Pressure on State Governments Associated Press by Geoff Mulvihill—The Republican health care plan means less money for states and gives them a tough choice: Find a pot of cash to make up the difference or let coverage lapse for millions of lower-income Americans. Governors and state lawmakers analyzing the Republican plan to replace former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act fear a return to the past, when those without health coverage used emergency rooms for their medical needs. That uncompensated care that was written off by hospitals or billed to the state.

• Access to Care Improved Most Where Medicaid Expanded Medscape by Robert Lowes—For low-income Americans, health insurance coverage and access to care have improved more in states that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) than in states that didn't, according to a new health system "scorecard" released on March 15 by the Commonwealth Fund. The percentage of low-income, working-age adults without insurance decreased 14.1 points on average in Medicaid expansion states from 2013 to 2015 compared with 8.9 points in nonexpansion states.
  
  
• Report: Florida Loses Ground in Avoidable Hospital Visits Health News Florida by Daylina Miller—When it comes to keeping people out of the hospital, Florida didn't score so well on new scorecard that pits state health care systems against one another. The Commonwealth Fund report gave Florida a rank of 45 out of 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., when it came to the "Avoiding hospital use and cost" indicator. That's a drop of 13 points between 2012 and 2015. The report's authors attribute this largely to Florida's refusal to expand Medicaid.
  
  
• N.J. Tops Many States on Health Care Scorecard NJ Spotlight by Lilo H. Stainton—The Affordable Care Act has led to better healthcare outcomes nationwide and states like New Jersey that chose to embrace the federal law have seen greater improvements than those that did not, according to a national ranking released Thursday. Researchers at the Commonwealth Fund found Garden State residents have better access to healthcare and generally lead healthier lives than citizens of many other states, but patients here are less likely than those elsewhere to avoid re-hospitalization and readmission to nursing homes.

• Senate Confirms Trump Pick to Head Medicare and Medicaid AP by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar—President Donald Trump's pick to run Medicare and Medicaid won confirmation Monday from a divided Senate as lawmakers braced for another epic battle over the government's role in health care and society's responsibility toward the vulnerable. Indiana health care consultant Seema Verma, a protégé of Vice President Mike Pence, was approved by a 55-43 vote, largely along party lines. 

• White House: 12.2 Million Enroll in Obamacare for 2017 The Hill by Jessie Hellmann—About 12.2 million people signed up for Obamacare plans during the 2017 enrollment period, the Trump administration announced Wednesday. The total falls short of the Obama administration's projected signups of 13.8 million people and is slightly down from the 2016 enrollment period, when 12.7 million people signed up for plans. Democrats accused the Trump administration of sabotaging enrollment when it pulled $5 million in ads that were to air in the final weeks of open enrollment.

• The Lessons of Obamacare: What Republicans Should Have learned, but Haven't VOX by Sarah Kliff and Ezra Klein—We are reporters who have covered health care, and the legislative ideas that became the Affordable Care Act (ACA), since before Obama's election. In the course of that reporting, including recent conversations with Obama and dozens of elected officials and staffers responsible for the ACA's design, passage, and implementation, we have unearthed several lessons from the law, which current and future health reformers should heed.