• The GOP Health Care Plan Could Wipe Out Nearly a Million Jobs: Study Fiscal Times by Beth Braverman—The American Health Care Act passed by the House of Representatives could be a serious job killer. If the bill were to pass the Senate in its current form (the Senate is working on its version of the bill in secret so it’s hard to say just how different the Senate version is), the economy would lose 924,000 jobs over the next decade, according to a new report from George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and the Commonwealth Fund.  The 31 states that expanded Medicaid coverage would see the deepest and fastest economic losses.
  
  
• Flexibility That ACA Lent to Work Force Is Threatened by GOP Plan New York Times by Reed Abelson—In recent years, millions of middle- and working-class Americans have moved from job to job, some staying with one company for shorter stints or shifting careers midstream. The Affordable Care Act has enabled many of those workers to get transitional coverage that provides a bridge to the next phase of their lives—a stopgap to get health insurance if they leave a job, are laid off, start a business or retire early. If the Republican replacement plan approved by the House becomes law, changing jobs or careers could become much more difficult. Across the nation, Americans in their 50s and early 60s, still too young to qualify for Medicare, could be hit hard by soaring insurance costs, especially people now eligible for generous subsidies through the existing federal health care law.

• 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.

• Government Actuaries Say You'll Pay a Whole Lot More For Health Insurance If the GOP Repeals Obamacare Los Angeles Times by Michael Hiltzik—Here are some findings about Obamacare repeal that congressional Republicans and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price will have trouble explaining away: Under the GOP’s Affordable Care Act repeal bill, individuals will be paying an average 27 percent more for their insurance by 2026 than under current law. That’s $162 per month more, on average. Stunningly, cost-sharing—that is, copays and deductibles—would rise by an average 61 percent compared to current law. Gross premiums would be lower than under the current law, in part because insurance would offer fewer benefits, but net premiums—after subsidies—would be higher.

• Insurers Confront Big Obamacare Decision The Hill by Jessie Hellmann—Insurers are nearing the deadline for deciding whether to propose massive rate hikes or leave the Obamacare markets altogether in the face of immense uncertainty over the future of the law. The federal deadline for insurers to file rate proposals with the federal government is June 21. Many insurers had been hoping that the Trump administration would say for certain whether it would continue to pay cost-sharing reduction (CSR) subsidies for covering low-income enrollees.  No such assurances from the administration appear to be coming, leaving insurers with a difficult choice.
  
  
• Trump Says Market Is Failing, but One Insurer Bets Big on Obamacare New York Times by Margot Sanger-Katz and Reed Abelson—On Tuesday, the insurer Centene announced plans to expand aggressively into the state marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act. Centene said it intended to sell individual policies for the first time in Nevada, Missouri and Kansas, and to grow its presence in six other states, including Ohio and Florida.
  
  
• Cleveland Clinic Jumps into Insurance Biz with Oscar Health Modern Healthcare by Shelby Livingston—While many health insurers are fleeing the individual market, health system Cleveland Clinic is jumping into the insurance business head first with the New York-based startup Oscar Health. Ohio's Cleveland Clinic and the tech-focused Oscar said Thursday they are launching a joint venture health insurance company that will offer individuals coverage on and off the Affordable Care Act's exchanges at a time when most other insurers are jumping ship because of financial losses and regulatory uncertainty perpetuated by the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress. 

Editor: Peter Van Vranken