HuffPost: “A day after just about everyone on Capitol Hill declared the Senate health care bill dead, the legislation once again seemed to have the tiniest bit of life, with Republicans staying late into the night Wednesday to discuss whether there was a path forward.”

“If Collins is a no vote on any form of the legislation and Paul won’t support a replacement, and Capito and Murkowski won’t support the repeal-only approach, and Lee and Moran won’t support the replacement, and it’s unclear if McCain will be back next week … Republicans simply don’t have the votes throughout all the confusing scenarios. And that’s to say nothing of Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has been cagey all along on any form of the legislation.”

Politico: “A harsh reality is setting in among Senate Republicans: they’re extremely unlikely to repeal Obamacare in the coming days.”

A new CBO report says that about 22 million people would lose health insurance coverage over the next decade under the most recent revision of the Senate’s Obamacare replacement bill, The Hill reports.

“The number is slightly less than what was predicted in the original draft of the legislation released last month, but still far more than the number of uninsured under the Affordable Care Act.”

“However, the CBO did not score an amendment added to the bill by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), which would let insurers opt out of ObamaCare regulations as long as they also sell ObamaCare-compliant plans.”

“A key group of Senate Republicans met late into the night Wednesday to try to salvage their health care bill, but emerged without any breakthroughs and still appeared far from finding the votes to repeal Obamacare. Still, as GOP senators left the nearly three-hour meeting, they professed optimism,” Politico reports.

Said one former aide to Caitlin Owens: “They can’t accept they’ve been promising something that is undeliverable and a bad idea for seven years.”

A new Fox News poll finds 74% of Americans want GOP lawmakers to reach out to Democrats and try to find a compromise on a new health care bill. That includes 86% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans.

The CBO estimates that the GOP repeal-only health care bill would increase the number of people who are uninsured by 17 million in 2018, compared with the number under current law.

That number would increase to 27 million in 2020, after the elimination of Medicaid expansion and the elimination of marketplace subsidies, and then to 32 million in 2026.

In addition, average premiums in the nongroup market would increase by roughly 25% in 2018. The increase would reach about 50% in 2020, and premiums would about double by 2026.

Politico: “Leaders of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus on Wednesday evening will jump-start a process intended to force the measure — a mirror of the 2015 repeal proposal that President Obama vetoed — to the floor as early as September.”

“Their effort is unlikely to result in a bill landing on Donald Trump’s desk — many Republicans have rejected calls to eliminate the core of Obamacare without having a comprehensive replacement plan ready. But if the group garners enough signatures to trigger the floor vote, it would force many mainstream and moderate Republican lawmakers into the uncomfortable position of rejecting a repeal measure they backed just two years ago.”

“I don’t think there are 40 votes to repeal and say to the American people, ‘Well, trust us to come up with something in the next couple of years.’ I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

— Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), quoted by CNN., on the proposed “clean” repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Caitlin Owens: “It’s up in the air what Senate Republicans will vote on next week, following their meeting with President Trump on Wednesday. The goal seems to be to get something passed, regardless of whether it just repeals parts of the Affordable Care Act or tries to replace them.”

“It can’t be overstated how wild it is that Senate Republicans are planning to vote on a massive restructuring of the health insurance system next week, without knowing what it will look like. And though passage of anything seems unlikely, if they do manage to pass a replacement bill, it’ll be a patchwork of last-minute compromises on top of a bill that is already massively unpopular and hasn’t been thoroughly analyzed. And Republicans will then own whatever happens under their bill.”

Axios: “All of the Republican senators who oppose the Senate health care bill are meeting tonight to work out their differences — after being told by President Trump this afternoon that they need to work late into the night to get a deal. The holdouts, including moderates and conservatives, are scheduled to meet in Sen. John Barrasso’s office at 7:30 pm Eastern with the goal of getting a deal to revive the shelved Affordable Care Act repeal and replacement bill.”

However, one senior GOP aide dismissed the chances for actual progress: “This is just the death rattle.”

Ezra Klein: “The core problem is Trump has no idea what he’s talking about on health care and never bothered to learn. ‘Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,’ he famously, and absurdly, said. His inability to navigate its complexities meant he couldn’t make persuasive arguments on behalf of the bills he supported, and he routinely made statements that undercut the legislative process and forced Republicans to defend the indefensible.”

“Because Trump doesn’t understand the legislation or the trade-offs it made, he can’t make persuasive arguments on its behalf in public or private, and so he mostly doesn’t try. Trump and his team are not frequent presences in the public debate trying to sell the legislation they’re so keen to sign. That’s one reason the various bills routinely polled around 20 percent — without Trump using the bully pulpit to argue on behalf of the legislation, critics, terrible Congressional Budget Office reports, and news of congressional infighting filled the void.”

“When Trump does weigh in, it’s often a disaster.”

Rick Klein: “The GOP health care proposals are now in their zombie phase, and the undead can be hard to kill off. Perhaps that’s why President Trump is responding to major setbacks by attacking just about everybody — Democrats, Republicans and even the people who depend on Obamacare for their health insurance — if he’s serious about letting insurance markets fail now. Where he’s not assigning blame, of course, is on himself: ‘I’m not going to own it,’ the president declared.”

“That – aside from being a stunning abdication of presidential responsibility, if he’s serious — means that the White House plan is that there is no plan. The president will lunch with all Republican senators today to try to change minds one last time. But in blaming basically everybody, Trump’s own actions have given those senators no real political wiggle room. Just because Trump doesn’t have a strategy, though, doesn’t mean Republicans in Congress can’t. A failed vote next week would free up lawmakers to go rogue, and even – gasp – talk to people on the other side of the aisle.”

Sam Baker: “It ain’t over until it’s over, and there’s still some chatter bouncing around Capitol Hill about last-minute shenanigans or a Hail Mary on the Senate floor. And President Trump is sure to put some serious pressure on the moderates this afternoon when all of the Republican senators lunch with him at the White House. But unless something dramatic changes, Washington appears to be about done with the repeal-and-replace phase of the debate over the Affordable Care Act.”