- Senate Likely to Miss Its Obamacare Repeal Deadline Politico by Jennifer Haberkorn—The prospects of Republicans meeting their deadline of a Senate health care vote before the end of the month are bleak—and growing more so by the day—Senate Republicans are getting dangerously close to missing their deadline to hold a Senate health care vote by month’s end, potentially derailing fulfillment of their seven-year-old campaign promise to repeal Obamacare. The Senate left Washington on Thursday with a seemingly insurmountable health care to-do list.
- Trump Tells Senators House Health Bill 'Mean' AP by Alan Fram—President Donald Trump told Republican senators Tuesday that the House-passed health care bill he helped revive is "mean" and urged them to craft a version that is "more generous," congressional sources said. Trump's remarks were a surprising slap at a Republican-written House measure that was shepherded by Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and whose passage the president lobbied for and praised. At a Rose Garden ceremony minutes after the bill's narrow House passage on May 4, Trump called it "a great plan.” The president’s criticism, at a White House lunch with 15 GOP senators, also came as Senate Republican leaders’ attempts to write their own health care package have been slowed by disagreements between their party’s conservatives and moderates.
- Secrecy Surrounding Senate Health Bill Raises Alarms in Both Parties New York Times by Thomas Kaplan and Robert Pear—As they draft legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Senate Republican leaders are aiming to transform large sections of the American health care system without a single hearing on their bill and without a formal, open drafting session. That has created an air of distrust and concern—on and off Capitol Hill, with Democrats but also with Republicans. The secrecy surrounding the Senate measure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act is remarkable—at least for a health care measure this consequential.