House Leaders, Confident Rabble-Rousers Will Fall In Line, Promise Repeal This Month

The Washington Post: Paul Ryan’s Feeling Confident About Repeal-And-Replace. McConnell Not So Much.
With each passing day, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan gets more confident that his troops are falling in line and that they will soon pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act. “I am perfectly confident that when it’s all said and done, we are going to unify,” Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters Thursday. “Because we all — every Republican — ran on repealing and replacing [the ACA]. And we are going to keep our promises.” Yet over in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is much more circumspect. “The goal is for the administration, the House and the Senate to be in the same place,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “We’re not there yet.” (Kane, 3/2)

In other national health care news —

The Washington Post: House Leaders Forge Ahead With Health Bills, Hoping To Bulldoze Internal Strife
Key House committees are set to take up legislation to repeal and begin replacing the Affordable Care Act next week, with Republican leaders intent on overcoming internal GOP debates to quickly deliver on a central campaign promise. Those intraparty struggles were highlighted Thursday when a Republican senator joined Democrats in calling for more transparency in the legislation’s drafting and suggested that House leaders were keeping details under wraps to sideline conservatives. (DeBonis, 3/2)

The New York Times: G.O.P. Accused Of Playing ‘Hide-And-Seek’ With Obamacare Replacement Bill
It was “find the Affordable Care Act replacement” day on Thursday as publicity-seeking Democrats — and one frustrated Republican — scampered through Capitol corridors, hunting for an elusive copy of a bill that Republican leaders have withheld from the public as they search for party unity. Just a week before two powerful House committees plan to vote on the measure, opponents spent hours making the point that almost no one has actually seen legislation that would affect the lives and pocketbooks of millions of Americans. (Pear, 3/2)

The Associated Press: GOP Health Bill: Less Government; But What About Coverage? 
Health insurance tax credits, mandates, taxation of employer coverage, essential benefits. Mind-numbing health care jargon is flying around again as Republicans move to repeal and replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. It’s time to start paying attention. The GOP plan emerging in the House would mean less government, and many fear that will translate to less coverage and a step backward as a nation. Still, there would be new options for middle-class people who buy their own policies but don’t now qualify for help under the ACA. Some popular provisions such as allowing young adults to stay on a parental plan remain untouched. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/3)

Bloomberg: GOP Governors Forming Plan To Keep Obama Medicaid Expansion
A group of Republican governors is preparing a compromise plan for their peers in Congress who want to roll back Obamacare’s Medicaid benefits, asking them to preserve the law’s expansion of coverage to millions of poor people. The compromise proposal has been initiated by a group including Ohio Governor John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and would hold on to parts of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the program. It’s meant to satisfy Republican goals of repealing Obamacare and giving more control of Medicaid to the states, while also maintaining coverage of people such as childless adults and those just above the poverty level. It would also open the door for states such as Wisconsin to broaden Medicaid eligibility. (Tracer and Edney, 3/2)

The Washington Post: CMS Nominee Moves On A Party-Line Vote Toward Confirmation
A sharply divided Senate Finance Committee on Thursday morning recommended the confirmation of Seema Verma, a health-care consultant who has reshaped Medicaid in several states, to run the nation’s Medicare and Medicaid programs. On a vote of 13 to 12, with every Democrat in opposition, Verma’s nomination now moves to the full Senate, where the Republican majority has been moving swiftly to give its seal of approval to each of President Trump’s nominees who have come to a floor vote. (Goldstein, 3/2)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Trump’s Fishy Suggestion That Nearly 20 Million Are Paying An Obamacare Penalty
“It has gotten so bad that nearly 20 million Americans have chosen to pay the penalty or received an exemption rather than buy insurance. That’s something that nobody has ever heard of or thought could happen, and they’re actually doing that rather than being forced to buy insurance," President Trump remarks in a meeting with health insurance executives. This number struck us as a bit curious when President Trump launched into one of his standard attacks on the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, as he met with representatives of the health-insurance industry. Are 20 million Americans actually refusing to buy health insurance and instead pay a penalty? (Kessler, 3/2)

The Washington Post: Trump Calls The FDA ‘Slow And Burdensome,’ But It’s Faster Than Ever
Two days before Christmas, the Food and Drug Administration gave Thomas Crawford an unexpected gift: approval of the first treatment ever for a devastating genetic disease that causes muscle wasting in babies and often results in death at an early age. The drug “is nothing short of oh-my-God amazing” when given to infants who have not yet had symptoms, said Crawford, a Johns Hopkins pediatric neurologist who was involved in the clinical trials for the drug for spinal muscular atrophy. (McGinley, 3/2)