GOP Health Care Effort Is Unraveling

First Read: “You know things aren’t going well at the White House when the president would rather want to talk about his taxes than health care. And that brings us to what is still the biggest story American politics: The Republican’s health care overhaul efforts are unraveling.”

Playbook: “We’re not going to make predictions about whether congressional Republicans will be able to live up to their near decade-old promise of repealing and replacing Obamacare. Legislating takes time. The process has ups and downs. Arms get twisted, leaders give rousing rally cries and support materializes seemingly out of nowhere. But, look around — things look shaky, at best, for President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan’s American Health Care Act. ”

Rick Klein: “The health care overhaul… is in real danger in the place that passage was supposed to be easiest. Now House moderates are joining with conservative colleagues to back away from the measure, for opposing reasons that again tell the story of GOP divisions. It’s a storyline that looks likely to end badly for the push to ‘repeal and replace,’ and could be equally bad for the tenuous Trump-Ryan relationship, amid talk that the Trump team may cut a deal without the speaker’s overt blessing.”

David Nather: “It’s going to be tough to satisfy all of the Republicans who have problems with the House Obamacare replacement bill… But don’t assume that’s the end of the road. Smart Republicans who were around for the passage of Obamacare, the mirror image of what Republicans are going through now, tell me there’s probably still a path to President Trump’s desk for something they can call repeal. Just don’t assume it’s going to look like this bill.”

Key takeaway: “Republicans can’t just give up on repeal after running on it in four elections.”