“Several Senate Republicans began to question whether their health-care bill should repeal a tax on high-income Americans imposed by Obamacare when the legislation would scale back subsidies for the poor,” Bloomberg reports.

“Scaling back the tax cuts could provide a path to winning over key moderate senators who have recoiled at the soaring premiums and deductibles for millions of low-income people as scored by the CBO, and the estimated 22 million fewer people who would have insurance in a decade. Meanwhile, conservatives have pushed to wipe out all of the taxes, though senators like Ted Cruz have not insisted every tax cut remain as part of an overall deal. Conservatives have been focused more on cutting regulations to lower premiums.”

A new Quinnipiac poll finds just 16% of Americans approve of the Republican health care plan to replace Obamacare, while 58% disapprove.

If a lawmaker votes for the Republican plan, 46% of voters are less likely to support their reelection, with 17% more likely and 33% who say the health care vote won’t matter in their decision.

Said pollster Tim Malloy: “Call it a dressed up retread of the last GOP healthcare plan, or simply a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Americans aren’t buying this latest version of the plan to kill Obamacare. And the dismissal comes with the dire warning: If you vote for this one, you may not be around to vote for the next version.”

“The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the Senate Republicans’ health care bill becomes law, 14 million Americans will lose their health insurance in 2018, and, by 2026, 22 million would lose coverage,” Vox reports.

President Trump predicted that Senate Republicans are “going to get at least very close” to passing legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, adding that “I think we’re going to get it over the line,” Politico reports.

A new USA Today/Suffolk poll finds just 12% of of Americans approve of the Senate Republican health care plan.

Meanwhile, a 53% majority say Congress should either leave Obamacare alone or work to fix its problems while keeping its framework intact.

“But the dilemma for the GOP is this: Eight in 10 Republicans support repeal, and close to a third say the law should be repealed even if a replacement health care plan isn’t ready yet.”

Congressional Budget Office: “Although premiums have been rising under current law, most subsidized enrollees purchasing health insurance coverage in the nongroup market are largely insulated from increases in premiums because their out-of-pocket payments for premiums are based on a percentage of their income; the government pays the difference between that percentage and the premiums for a reference plan… Nevertheless, a small number of people live in areas of the country that have limited participation by insurers in the nongroup market under current law.”

Rick Klein: “If this was a make-or-break moment, what the break part looks like can lead to all sorts of directions. It’s easy enough to imagine enough GOP tweaks and goodies to get to 50 Senate votes in a few weeks, with the conservative holdouts getting just enough of what they want to get health care passed. It’s also easy to foresee a restless, angry summer of town halls that makes it unlikely that anyone budges, leaving a tense status quo where presidential tweets stir the pot but not any action. But is it ridiculous to suggest there might be a moment for actual governing? Probably, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“With Democrats’ still backing Obamacare, and Republicans in the still-unfamiliar position of governing, every political leader has a stake in the health care laws, just as all their constituents did already. There are changes – even major ones – that could pass with supermajorities if slogans are just filtered out of the congressional water. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is talking about it as a backup option, though he’s making his declaration – ‘we’ll have to sit down withSchumer’ – sound more like a threat than a roadmap.”

First Read: “Under any other Senate GOP leader, we’d say that the Republican health care effort is dead. But Mitch McConnell isn’t any other GOP leader, and if someone can find a way to bridge the Rand Pauls/Mike Lees/Ted Cruzes with the Susan Collinses/Dean Hellers/Lisa Murkowskis, it’s McConnell. All of that said, time isn’t on McConnell’s side. As a Senate Republican crafting the legislation told us, more time doesn’t make passage easier. That’s why McConnell tried to ram through the legislation this week.”