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Senate Rejects Obamacare Repeal Politico by John Bresnahan, Burgess Everett, Jennifer Haberkorn, and Seung Min Kim — The Senate Republicans’ push to dismantle Obamacare collapsed in dramatic fashion early Friday morning, when Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and John McCain of Arizona teamed to sink an already scaled-back effort to dismantle the 2010 health care law. The three GOP senators sided with all 48 Democrats to reject the Republicans’ so-called skinny repeal plan, tanking the measure by a vote of 49-51. The Senate GOP had already pretty much shunned the proposal, viewing it mostly as a route to go into negotiations with the House. The bizarre turn of events — GOP senators were gearing up to vote for a bill few if any of them actually support — came on a frenetic day of the Republican Party’s tortured bid to upend the Democratic health care law.
- How Democrats Won the Health Care War and How They Could Lose the Next One Politico Magazine by Bill Scher — "The mover on health care loses," Democratic operative James Carville said in January. "To do something is to lose." That cold-hearted political proverb has been repeatedly proven true, if the standard is short-term electoral gain. In terms of policy, it's another story. Now that Obamacare repeal has fizzled, Democrats have officially won the eight-year health care war. And so, after eight exasperating years of playing defense on health care, Democrats finally have some wind at their back. But where they take that momentum is far from clear, as Democratic factions with competing goals are bound to draw different lessons from their win.
- Timeline: Obamacare's History Littered with Near-Death Experiences Kaiser Health News by Julie Rovner — Few laws have defied as many existential threats as the Affordable Care Act. A few hours ago, it survived again. In seven years, it has been to the brink of elimination nearly a dozen times, only to rally back from seemingly impossible odds. Efforts to kill it have come from Congress (including one in 2015 that made it all the way to President Barack Obama's desk before being vetoed), the White House and the courts. The latest — a repeal bill in the Senate that fell apart, 51-49, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) casting a decisive vote — occurred Friday in the early morning hours. Here is a timeline of the ACA's "near-death" experiences, which occurred before the bill passed, during its implementation, and after benefits began to flow.
- House Soundly Rejects Conservative Bid to Enviscerate Congressional Budget Office McClatchy by Anshu Siripurapu — Conservative House Republicans, enraged by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) findings that Obamacare's repeal would leave millions without health care coverage, failed Wednesday in a bid to cut the agency's budget and staff, a move that would have dramatically weakened its effectiveness. The House rejected, 309–116, an effort by four conservative Republicans, including Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., to eliminate the CBO's Budget Analysis Division. Eighty-nine jobs would have been eliminated and the division would be transferred to the CBO director's office.