"The Senate Finance and [Health] Committees cannot abdicate our responsibility to hold public hearings on such sweeping health reform legislation, Before passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Senate held a thorough, collaborative, and deliberate process.  Rather than continuing to work in secret, we urge you to make good on your stated preference and long successful history of bipartisan legislating, and hold public hearings on the devastating impact of 'TrumpCare."' 

—Sens. Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Patty Murray (Wash.)

• Poll: Just 21 Percent Approve of House's Obamacare Repeal Bill Politico by Louis Nelson—Less than a quarter of American voters surveyed in a new poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University approve of the legislation passed last week by the House of Representatives to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Fifty-six percent of those polled said they disapprove of the legislation, dubbed the American Health Care Act, while just 21 percent said they support it. 
  
  
• 13 Men, and No Women, Are Writing New G.O.P. Health Bill in Senate New York Times by Robert Pear—The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has a reputation as a shrewd tactician and a wily strategist—far more than his younger counterpart in the House, Speaker Paul D. Ryan. So the Senate majority leader's decision to create a 13-man working group on health care, including staunch conservatives and ardent foes of the Affordable Care Act—but no women—has been widely seen on Capitol Hill as a move to placate the right as Congress decides the fate of President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement.
  
  
• Four Deal-Breakers That Could Blow Up a Senate Obamacare Repeal Bill Politico by Adam Cancryn—Here are the four potential deal-breakers that could sink the GOP's Obamacare repeal bid by siphoning support from the political center: Deep cuts to Medicaid; fewer protections for people with pre-existing conditions; defunding Planned Parenthood; and the "age tax."
  
  
• CBO Score of Obamacare Repeal Bill Expected Week Of May 22 Politico by Jennifer Haberkorn—The Senate parliamentarian can't review the legislation and the GOP cannot really start writing its bill in the upper chamber until the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring is complete. That's because the Senate version has to save at least as much money as the House bill—otherwise the measure would violate the budget resolution and the GOP repeal effort would come to a swift end.
  
  
• Senate GOP Defends Writing Its Healthcare Bill in Private The Hill by Peter Sullivan—Senate Republicans are defending their decision to write their own Obamacare replacement bill behind closed doors, bypassing the usual committee process. They say it is unlikely that the bill will go through hearings and markups in committee, though they stress that a working group of lawmakers, as well as the entire Republican caucus, will have heavy input on the bill. It is highly unusual for a measure overhauling the healthcare system—which represents roughly 20 percent of the U.S. economy—to be negotiated in private.
  
  
• GOP Senators Likely to Pass ACA Repeal Bill​ Because Failure Is Not an Option Modern Healthcare by Harris Meyer—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faces a seemingly herculean task in getting at least 50 Republican senators with sharply diverse views to reach consensus on a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Despite these hurdles, it wouldn't be smart to bet against McConnell and his colleagues. There are growing signs they could pull it off. That's because they and President Donald Trump need to pass an ACA repeal bill—their central promise to voters for the past seven years——to move forward with tax reform and better position themselves to keep control of Congress in the 2018 elections.

• Health Insurers' Proposed 2018 Rate Hikes Are Early 'Warning Signs' Modern Healthcare by Shelby Livingston—Health insurers are asking state regulators to approve giant rate increases for 2018 individual policies, in part because they don't yet know if the Trump administration plans to help or hurt the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges. Insurers in the three states that have published requested rates say their double-digit hikes, which exceed 50 percent in some cases, may climb even higher if the federal government doesn't take steps to ease their jitters over ACA repeal-and-replace efforts by funding cost-sharing reduction subsidies and enforcing the mandate that requires most people to enroll in coverage. 
  
  
• Early Proposed Rates for ACA Health Plans Hint at a Jump in Premiums for 2018 Washington Post by Amy Goldstein—Early clues suggest that health insurance prices in Affordable Care Act marketplaces could jump again for the coming year, defying predictions that premium rates would begin to level off. Amid the uncertainties hovering over those marketplaces as the Trump administration and a Republican Congress try to dismantle major parts of the law, many states have postponed for another few months their spring deadlines for insurers to report how much they want to charge for ACA health plans in 2018.
  
  
• More Price Hikes Likely for Government Insurance Markets AP by Tom Murphy—Early moves by insurers suggest that another round of price hikes and limited choices will greet insurance shoppers around the country when they start searching for next year's coverage on the public markets established by the Affordable Care Act. Insurance companies are still making decisions about whether to offer coverage for individuals next year on these markets, and price increase requests are only just starting to be revealed by state regulators. But in recent weeks big insurers like Aetna and Humana have been dropping out of markets or saying that they aren't ready to commit. And regulators in Virginia and Maryland have reported early price hike requests ranging from just under 10 percent to more than 50 percent.

• Prescription Drug Prices Rose Almost 9 Percent in 2016, Continuing an Ongoing Trend Stat by Ed Silverman—For those debating the cost of prescription drugs, here is still more evidence illustrating how costs are thinning the American wallet—prices rose 8.8 percent last year, which is the fourth consecutive year of overall price hikes that exceeded 8 percent, according to a new analysis. Moreover, this amounts to an annual average price increase of almost 10 percent over the past three years. 

• CMS Gives States Until 2022 to Meet Medicaid Standards on Home and Community-Based Care Kaiser Health News by Phil Galewitz—The Trump administration has given states three extra years to carry out plans for helping elderly and disabled people receive Medicaid services without being forced to go into nursing homes. Federal standards requiring states to find ways of delivering care to Medicaid enrollees in home and community-based settings will take effect in 2022 instead of 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week. The standards were set by an Obama administration rule adopted in 2014 that governs where more than 3 million Medicaid enrollees get care.

Editor: Peter Van Vranken