“Two key House committees have approved a Republican proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act, giving the bill its first victories even as the Senate’s top Republican expressed concern about the absence of a price tag,” the Washington Post reports.

Rick Klein and Shushannah Walshe: “As Capitol Hill waits on the Congressional Budget Office to ‘score’ the new health care bill, the White House seems to be setting things up…to ignore it.”

Said White House press secretary Sean Spicer: “If you’re looking to the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place. When they come out with this score, we need to understand their track record when it comes to health care.”

“This is the latest signal from the White House that it intends to sideline the CBO, which has operated as the independent arbiter of costs and impact for generations – hard facts, in an era of spin. The ‘alternative facts’ presidency has broader implications than health care or the budget: job numbers, growth statistics, climate data – all affect policy decisions where a common set of facts is valuable, if not critical.”

CNBC: “Exit polls showed that just 10 percent of Trump’s votes came from Americans earning $200,000 or more. Yet those voters would derive all benefits from the repeal of the two individual tax hikes targeting them: a 0.9 percent tax on their earnings, and a 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.”

“An even smaller group, the top 1 percent of earners, would receive an average tax cut of $33,000, according to the Tax Policy Center. The top 0.1 percent of earners would receive an average tax cut of $197,000.”

“But half of Trump’s votes came from white voters without college degrees. And those less-affluent voters stand to lose in multiple ways if Congress rolls back Obamacare in favor of the House GOP plan.”

New York Times: “The displeasure is forcing an uncomfortable reckoning in the Republican Party much earlier and in a much more disruptive way than many think is constructive. And it has many conservatives asking why — now that they control both houses of Congress and the White House and have remained largely united so far — they are picking a fight with each other.”

“The criticism from the right has grown so harsh that President Trump asked leaders of several conservative groups in an Oval Office meeting on Wednesday to tone it down.”

“Unified government was supposed to eliminate some of the infighting that plagued the Republicans during the Obama years, when the party’s right flank brought down a House speaker, defeated a House majority leader and blocked another majority leader’s ascent. Instead, it is underlining the difficulties of running Washington now that their party bears full responsibility.”

President Trump told Tea Party groups at the White House that if the Republican health care plan dies, he will let Obamacare fail and let Democrats take the blame, CNN reports.

He also warned the groups that calling the plan “Obamacare Lite” was “helping the other side.”