TEARS OF PAIN: OBAMACARE REPEALED IN THE HOUSE.

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After seven years of empty promises and meaningless floor votes, today the House passed a bill designed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. [Vox / Sarah Kliff]  The vote was extremely close; Republicans needed 216 yes votes to pass it — and got 217. In what is not even a little bit of an exaggeration, the New York Times called the vote “a remarkable act of political resuscitation, six weeks after House leaders failed to muster the votes to pass an earlier version of their bill” (…which kind of sounds like a review blurb for a really boring horror movie). [New York Times / Thomas Kaplan, Robert Pear]  Last-minute negotiations and phone calls from President Donald Trump himself won over undecided conservatives. But apparently, many Republican representatives don’t necessarily like the result (i.e., the bill they voted for). Some have already come out stating that they expect the bill to change if and when it goes to the Senate. And Trump, for his part, is reportedly concerned that if it passes and people lose health care, he will be blamed. [Politico / Josh Dawsey]  Congressman Greg Walden, Speaker Paul Ryan and Congressman Fred Upton  Bill Clark / Getty Images Part of the problem is that the Congressional Budget Office hasn’t yet scored the bill, which means it’s unclear how many people would lose health care and how much it could cost. Making matters murkier, some representatives have admitted that they didn’t actually read it before voting. [Washington Post / David Weigel]  The eleventh-hour negotiations to cobble together an alliance of enough conservatives, Trump loyalists, and moderates to get to 217 ultimately involved making compromises that render an already-under thought bill nearly incoherent. For example: the Upton amendment. It throws an extra $8 billion into a finite pool of money intended to offset the costs of people with preexisting conditions. But that money will make it easier for people who don’t maintain health coverage to sign up once they’ve developed a problem — exactly what the GOP has been trying to avoid by creating a penalty for people who lose insurance and then buy it again. [Vox / Dylan Scott]  But the much bigger population is the people who’d have a harder time affording health care to begin with under the AHCA. That list includes: pregnant women and new mothers; Planned Parenthood patients; families with chronic conditions that can cause health care costs to sky rocket; children in special education programs; low-income workers who gained Medicaid under Obamacare; low-income Americans who are not on Medicaid and relied on Obamacare tax credits to bring down the cost of insurance; anyone who qualified for Medicaid before Obamacare, like seniors and the disabled; seniors who buy insurance on the exchanges; and residents of states who choose to “block grant” Medicaid. Odds are you personally know more than a few people this bill would hurt. [Vox / Dylan Matthews:These are all the people the Republican health care bill will hurt.] Terminally ill patient Jim Staloch caresses a dove on October 7, 2009, while at the Hospice of Saint John in Lakewood, Colorado.  John Moore/Getty Images Democrats were united against the bill — and 20 Republicans joined them in voting no. Interestingly, of 23 districts represented by a Republican that went to Clinton in the presidential election, only nine voted against this bill. [New York Times / Gregor Aisch, et al]  House Republicans decamped to the White House after the vote to celebrate with Trump, who gave a victory speech that, incredibly, included mocking Paul Ryan’s leadership capacities. [Reuters / Yasmeen Abutaleb, David Morgan]  U.S. President Donald Trump (C) gathers with Congressional Republicans in the Rose Garden of the White House after the House of Representatives approved the American Healthcare Act, to repeal major parts of Obamacare and replace it with the Republican healthcare plan, in Washington, U.S., May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria It was a weird celebration, and it likely won’t last long. Medical groups have come out strongly against the bill. But the most rain on the parade seems to be coming from the Senate — whose members appear to have no intention of taking up the House bill rather than writing their own. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee literally said, “We’re writing a Senate bill and not passing the House bill.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) characterized its problems succinctly: “Any bill that has been posted less than 24 hours, going to be debated three or four hours, not scored? Needs to be viewed with suspicion.” [Politico / Burgess Evertt, Jennifer Haberkorn]