In an effort to blunt the American Health Care Act’s disastrous effect on older Americans, House Republican leaders are adding a provision that would set aside $75 billion to do ... something unspecified. 
 
 Really. According to Politico, the new version of the bill will not say at all what to do with the $75 billion. Instead it will just “instruct the Senate” to come up with a plan to use the money to help people between the ages of 50 and 64. 
 
 This is a very unusual way to legislate and reflects House Republicans’ desperation to push through basically anything as soon as possible and pass the buck to the Senate. 
 
 The underlying issue is that the Affordable Care Act provides people earning less than 400 percent of the poverty line with sliding-scale subsidies to purchase health insurance. The less you earn, the more help you get. The ACA also limits insurance companies’ ability to charge older customers higher premiums than they charge to younger ones. 
 
 AHCA changes the subsidies around, ensuring that everyone who makes less than $75,000 a year gets a subsidy that’s based on age. The older you are, the more help you get. This leaves the neediest families out of luck — the subsidy isn’t enough to buy an insurance plan if you’re just barely above the poverty line regardless of your age, so they would end up going uninsured and get nothing from the government at all. 
 
 But even though older people get more generous subsidies, they are worse off than before too. That’s because AHCA allows insurers to charge older people as much as five times what they charge younger ones, so older people’s premiums will skyrocket far beyond anything the subsidy can deliver. 
 
 The result is a health insurance system that really only works for relatively young, relatively affluent people. 
 
 Older people are the Republican base, however, so a bill that badly damages their financial interests is a political problem for many House Republicans. Coming up with an actual fix to this problem is not conceptually impossible. But it would require a pretty substantial rethink of the underlying architecture of the AHCA, which is designed, on a deep level, to better serve the interests of people who don’t need much help while doing less to serve the interests of those who do. 
 
 But Paul Ryan is determined to have the House vote on this bill on Thursday, which means they don’t have time for any big rethink or prolonged negotiation. So what they’ve come up with instead is, apparently, this $75 billion magic asterisk. The House will pass a bill with what amounts to a blank spot, and then members can say they repealed Obamacare and toss the hot potato of working out the details to their colleagues in the Senate. ||||| So after all of that talk about big changes to the House Obamacare replacement bill, Republican leaders skipped some of the biggest ones they could have made. They did give some concessions to conservatives and moderates in the manager's amendment they released last night, but they also did a lot of punting. That means we will still have lots of drama between now and Thursday night. 
 
 The biggest actual changes the House GOP is making: 
 
 States can now choose Medicaid per capita caps or block grants. 
 
 There will be an optional Medicaid work requirement (with extra federal funds for states that do it). 
 
 There will be a more generous Medicaid inflation adjustment for the costs of elderly and disabled. 
 
 Obamacare taxes get repealed a year earlier. 
 
 The punty change: 
 
 A reserve fund to beef up the tax credit, especially for the low-income elderly, but no actual change to the tax credit. That's up to the Senate. 
 
 What they left out: 
 
 It doesn't end the Medicaid expansion earlier, as conservatives wanted. Rep. Joe Barton could still bring that to the Rules Committee on Wednesday. 
 
 It doesn't try to repeal Obamacare's insurance regulations. GOP leaders say that can't be done in a budget "reconciliation" bill, but conservatives want them to try. 
 
 It may not be good enough for the Freedom Caucus. Chairman Mark Meadows told Jonathan Swan that "our leadership is going to put forth a bill that does not address any of the concerns in a meaningful way and will dare us to vote against it." He says the group won't take a formal position against it, so that frees up some group members to vote for it. 
 
 But not Rep. Justin Amash, who tweeted: "They haven't changed the bill's general framework. They don't have the votes to pass it. They have seriously miscalculated." Get ready for suspense! 
 
 For the radar: The Club for Growth is launching a $500,000 TV and digital ad buy to urge House Republicans to vote against the bill. (Mainly ones who are already opposed or leaning against it.) 
 
 ||||| President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 21, 2017, to rally support for the Republican health care overhaul by taking his... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned House Republicans they could lose their seats in next year's midterm elections if they failed to back the GOP health care overhaul and fulfill a long-promised goal to undo Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. 
 
 In a rare trip to the Capitol, the president met behind closed doors with rank-and-file Republicans, some wavering on the legislation two days before a climactic vote. Top House Republicans unveiled revisions to their bill Monday night in hopes of nailing down support. 
 
 Trump's message to Republicans: "If you don't pass the bill there could be political costs," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C. 
 
 The lawmaker said Trump said House GOP seats could be at risk if the bill fails and "the danger of your not voting for the bill is people could lose their seats." 
 
 Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters Trump was "all-in" on repeal-and-replace, and attending the meeting "to do what he does best: to close the deal." 
 
 At a rally Monday night in Louisville, Kentucky, Trump underscored what he called "the crucial House vote." 
 
 "This is our long-awaited chance to finally get rid of Obamacare," he said of repealing former Obama's landmark law, a GOP goal since its 2010 enactment. "We're going to do it." 
 
 Trump's closed-door meeting with House Republicans was coming as party leaders released 43 pages worth of changes to a bill whose prospects remain dicey. Their proposals were largely aimed at addressing dissent that their measure would leave many older people with higher costs. 
 
 Included was an unusual approach: language paving the way for the Senate, if it chooses, to make the bill's tax credit more generous for people age 50-64. Details in the documents released were initially unclear, but one GOP lawmaker and an aide said the plan sets aside $85 billion over 10 years for that purpose. 
 
 The leaders' proposals would accelerate the repeal of tax increases Obama imposed on higher earners, the medical industry and others to this year instead of 2018. It would be easier for some people to deduct medical expenses from their taxes. 
 
 Older and disabled Medicaid beneficiaries would get larger benefits. But it would also curb future growth of the overall Medicaid program, which helps low earners afford medical coverage, and let states impose work requirements on some recipients. Additional states could not join the 31 that opted to expand Medicaid to more beneficiaries under Obama's law, the Affordable Care Act. 
 
 In a bid to cement support from upstate New Yorkers, the revisions would also stop that state from passing on over $2 billion a year in Medicaid costs to counties. The change was pushed by Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., one of Trump's first congressional supporters. Local officials have complained the practice overburdens their budgets. 
 
 The GOP bill would dismantle Obama's requirements that most people buy policies and that larger companies cover workers. Federal subsidies based largely on peoples' incomes and insurance premiums would end, and a Medicaid expansion to 11 million more low-income people would disappear. 
 
 The Republican legislation would provide tax credits to help people pay medical bills based chiefly on age, and open-ended federal payments to help states cover Medicaid costs would be cut. Insurers could charge older consumers five times the premiums they charge younger people instead of Obama's 3-1 limit, and would boost premiums 30 percent for those who let coverage lapse. 
 
 Republican support teetered last week when a nonpartisan congressional analysis projected the measure would strip 24 million people of coverage in a decade. The Congressional Budget Office also said the bill would cause huge out-of-pocket increases for many lower earners and people aged 50 to 64. 
 
 Democrats have opposed the GOP repeal effort. They tout Obama's expansion of coverage to 20 million additional people and consumer-friendly coverage requirements it imposed on insurers, including abolishing annual and lifetime coverage limits and forcing them to insure seriously ill people. 
 
 House approval would give the legislation much-needed momentum as it moves to the Senate, which Republicans control 52-48 but where five Republicans have expressed opposition. Trump used Monday's trip to single out perhaps the measure's most vociferous foe — Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul. 
 
 "He's a good guy," Trump said of one 2016 rival for the GOP presidential nomination. "And I look forward to working with him so we can get this bill passed, in some form, so that we can pass massive tax reform, which we can't do till this happens." 
 
 Enactment of the health care bill would clear the way for Congress to move to revamping the tax code and other GOP priorities. Defeat would wound Trump two months into his administration and raise questions about his ability to win support from his own party moving forward. 
 
 Among the disgruntled were GOP lawmakers in the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, though the strength of their opposition was unclear. The group has seemed to have around 40 members, but that number may be lower now and some have expressed support or an open mind for the bill. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press reporters Matthew Daly and Julie Bykowicz contributed to this report. ||||| House Speaker Paul Ryan and his top lieutenants have been meeting with holdout moderates to find out what's needed to secure their support. | AP Photo GOP leaders pile on sweeteners to sell Obamacare repeal The revisions are part of a last-ditch effort to get the measure passed. 
 
 
 
 House Republican leaders are making a last-ditch attempt to win enough support to pass their Obamacare repeal, revealing an expansive series of changes to the bill on Monday night designed to woo wary GOP lawmakers. 
 
 Requested by President Donald Trump, the amendment includes perks for restive conservatives who wanted optional work requirements and block granting in Medicaid, as well as a potential olive branch to wary centrists who demanded more help for older Americans to buy insurance, POLITICO has learned. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 But it is still unclear whether the changes are enough to win over the 216 Republicans needed to pass the measure in a high-profile vote planned for Thursday. GOP leadership insiders and White House officials firmly believe the changes will corral the necessary votes. But several rock-ribbed conservatives emerged from a closed-door session Monday night vowing to vote against the bill, and bragging that they have the votes to block it. 
 
 "House leadership does not have the votes to pass this very liberal bill unless they have a bunch of Democrats on board!" declared Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) while exiting the meeting. He called it "the largest Republican welfare bill in the history of the Republican Party." 
 
 The changes to the bill come just a few hours before Trump will address the full House GOP Conference. He's expected to urge them to vote for the bill. House Speaker Paul Ryan and his top lieutenants have been meeting with holdout moderates to find out what's needed to secure their support, while White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, a former Freedom Caucus member, has been working the far right. 
 
 The amendment is expected to entice some to vote "yes" on the bill, on both sides. For moderate and centrist Republicans, it would set aside funding — about $85 billion, according to Republican sources — for tax credits to help Americans between 50 and 64, who would see their premiums skyrocket under the current repeal plan. The amendment would not set up the tax credits but would instruct the Senate to do so, forcing House Republicans to take a vote on something the upper chamber would do later. It would be paid for by allowing consumers to write off less medical debt. 
 
 The boost for baby boomers was designed to counter the huge financial hit that Americans in that age group would take under the bill. The Congressional Budget Office said last week a 64-year-old making $26,500 would have paid about $1,700 for an insurance policy under Obamacare. Under the repeal plan, that would jump to about $14,600, CBO said. 
 
 That number scared a bunch of centrists on Capitol Hill. The powerful interest group AARP mobilized its members to oppose the bill in part because of the potentially huge cut to baby boomers. 
 
 Trump wanted the beefed-up tax credit in part because voters that age are a core element of his constituency and helped propel him to the White House. 
 
 The bill also includes provisions nodding at anti-abortion GOP leaders. Among other changes to the repeal bill, the amendment would delete a provision that would have allowed consumers to move leftover tax credit money into a Health Savings Account. Anti-abortion groups had raised concerns that the provision might be eliminated under the Senate's strict budget rules and inadvertently allow for taxpayer funding of abortion. 
 
 After learning of the change, at least one member of the anti-abortion caucus — Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) — told POLITICO she changed her vote to "yes." 
 
 It also includes some red meat for the right. Two of the changes, first reported on Friday, were essential to winning over the support of the Republican Study Committee. Trump met with leaders of the conservative group last week and agreed to allow work requirements in Medicaid as well as to give states the option of converting their Medicaid programs into block grants. Both concessions were heralded by conservatives as necessary modifications to the health entitlement and long-term wins. Some states sought work-requirement approval under the Obama administration but were rebuffed by federal officials. 
 
 The amendment would also repeal about a dozen Obamacare taxes a year earlier than originally planned, a win for conservatives who want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act as quickly as possible. It would also delay the implementation of the Cadillac tax again, this time from 2025 to 2026. 
 
 House GOP leaders also threw the New York delegation a bone to secure a whole host of "yes" votes. The amendment included a targeted change to Medicaid funding that’s specifically designed to garner support from New York’s delegation. It would attempt to transfer more Medicaid spending from counties to the state by blocking New York from obtaining federal reimbursements for payments made by counties. 
 
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 Rep. Chris Collins and other New York Republicans had been pushing leaders to add the amendment. Rep. Claudia Tenney told local reporters that the inclusion of the amendment would be essential to win her support for the whole repeal bill. 
 
 The amendment would also change federal Medicaid reimbursement rates for the elderly and disabled, a win for governors who were concerned about cuts. 
 
 In spite of all the changes, conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus are still defiant about the bill. Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows told reporters Monday evening that the negotiations on the bill appear to be over. But he doesn't think it's necessarily the end. 
 
 "I'm confident that we have enough concerns that a vote of 216 votes in the House would not happen today," he said. 
 
 John Bresnahan, Rachana Pradhan and Paul Demko contributed to this report. ||||| There are three problems you could have imagined the manager’s amendment to the American Health Care Act trying to fix: 
 
 The Congressional Budget Office estimates the AHCA will lead 24 million more Americans to go uninsured, push millions more into the kind of super-high-deductible care Republicans criticized in the Affordable Care Act, and all that will happen while the richest Americans get hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts. Voters — including the downscale rural whites who propelled Donald Trump into the presidency — aren’t going to like any of that. Virtually every health policy analyst from every side of the aisle thinks the AHCA is poorly constructed and will lead to consequences even its drafters didn’t intend. Avik Roy argues there are huge implicit tax increases for the poor who get jobs that lift them out of Medicaid’s ranks. Bob Laszewski thinks the plan will drive healthy people out of the insurance markets, creating even worse premium increases than we’re seeing under Obamacare. Implementing this bill, as drafted, would be a disaster. As written, the AHCA is unlikely to pass the House, and so GOP leadership needs to give House conservatives more reasons to vote for the bill, even if those reasons leave the legislation less likely to succeed in the Senate. For this bill to fail in the House would embarrass Speaker Paul Ryan and President Trump. 
 
 Of the three problems in the AHCA, the third is by far the least serious — but it’s the only one the manager’s amendment even attempts to solve. These aren’t changes that address the core problems the GOP health care bill will create for voters, insurers, or states; instead, it’s legislation that tries to solve some of the problems the bill creates for conservative legislators. It might yet fall short on even that count. 
 
 This is a trap for Republicans. Both the process and the substance of the American Health Care Act have revealed a political party that has lost sight of the fact that the true test of legislation isn’t whether it passes, but whether it works. 
 
 Republican leaders have moved this bill as fast as possible, with as little information as possible, and with no evident plan for what will happen if the bill actually becomes law and wreaks havoc in people’s lives. This is not the health reform package Donald Trump promised his voters, it’s not the health reform package conservative policy experts recommended to House Republicans, and it’s not the health reform package that polling shows people want. 
 
 About the only thing that can be said for the revised bill is this might be the health reform package that can pass the House. And that appears to be the only problem Republicans care to solve right now. 
 
 What changes are Republicans making to the AHCA? 
 
 The major changes to the bill, which were first reported Politico and which Vox has now confirmed, are: 
 
 A change in the tax deductibility of medical expenses that the Senate could harness to boost tax credits for older Americans, to the tune of an estimated $85 billion 
 
 More flexibility for states to add work requirements to Medicaid 
 
 More flexibility for states to take their Medicaid funding as a lump-sum block grant rather than a per-person check 
 
 Accelerating the repeal of Obamacare’s tax increases by one year 
 
 Restricting people from rolling unused tax credit money into health savings accounts (apparently to ease concerns of anti-abortion groups) 
 
 Changing Medicaid reimbursement procedures in a way that advantages county governments over state governments (for idiosyncratic reasons, Republicans from New York are high on this provision) 
 
 Changing Medicaid reimbursement rates for the elderly and disabled 
 
 States that haven’t accepted Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion will no longer have the opportunity to do so. 
 
 None of these provisions meaningfully change the underlying legislation, nor any of its flaws. These are mostly tweaks meant to win over hardcore conservatives and Congress members from New York. 
 
 Will these changes push the bill through the House? 
 
 The locus of effective opposition to the American Health Care Act has been the House Freedom Caucus. Monday night, its leader, Rep. Mark Meadows, sounded a pessimistic note. 
 
 "There are some small tweaks that are good tweaks, but there's not substantial changes in the manager's amendment that would make anybody be more compelled to vote for this," he said. "I don't think that the bill will pass without substantial changes." 
 
 Meadows & Amash have both told me w/ full confidence that the GOP Obamacare replacement bill won't have enough votes despite Ryan's changes — Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) March 21, 2017 
 
 Meadows may, of course, be wrong. Trump is lobbying individual House Republicans hard, and it’s possible a critical number of conservatives will be swayed by Ryan’s argument that this is their last, best, and only chance to repeal Obamacare. 
 
 But it’s also possible that the bill fails in the House. Some conservatives think they can get a better deal by holding strong, even though the better deal they seek would ensure the legislation is dead on arrival in the Senate, if it even makes it to the Senate. 
 
 One dynamic that may work against Ryan and the legislation is the secrecy, speed, and unilateralism of the process. The bill hasn’t been heavily debated or seriously amended in the committees. The changes to the bill were made by leadership, and they were made fast. Long legislative efforts are annoying for everyone involved, but the reason they’re undertaken is that the process leaves members feeling heard, and feeling bought into the end result. 
 
 Other than pressuring Ryan, rest of the membership has no direct control over bill text or votes for the remainder of the AHCA debate. |6 — Josh Huder (@joshHuder) March 20, 2017 
 
 The House GOP leadership has decided that their bill is unlikely to survive a longer and more open drafting process, and so they need to jam it through the House as fast as humanly possible. It took the House more than five months to pass the first iteration of the Affordable Care Act. Republicans are trying to clear their bill in mere weeks. (See this excellent Sarah Kliff piece for more on the stunning hypocrisy at play here.) 
 
 What do Republicans think will happen if they actually pass this into law? 
 
 I keep thinking about something that New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote today. “Republican politicians may offer pandering promises of lower deductibles and co-pays, but the coherent conservative position is that cheaper plans with higher deductibles are a very good thing,” he said. It’s a gently written sentence, but it’s damning beyond measure. 
 
 Republicans have been promising the literal opposite of the bill they are trying to pass. Trump swore he’d oppose Medicaid cuts — but this law has more than $800 billion of them. He said everyone would be covered — but the CBO estimates this bill will push up the ranks of the uninsured by 24 million people. Republicans everywhere said they would replace Obamacare with a plan that ensured more competition, lower premiums and deductibles, and an end to skyrocketing annual increases — but this bill will have the opposite effect for most of those affected. 
 
 So what happens when voters realize their new tax credit doesn’t cover anything close to the insurance they had? What happens when they find themselves with fewer choices, paying much higher premiums after their smaller subsidies, and being told by insurers that costs are doubling because Republicans changed how much more the old could be charged than the young? 
 
 Voters will notice all this. And what are Republicans going to say then? That it’s all Barack Obama’s fault? That high deductibles are actually good, they just forgot to mention it? That they needed something they could pass quickly so they could move on to tax reform? 
 
 This bill has always seemed like an answer to the question, “What can we pass that would count as repealing and replacing Obamacare?” But that’s not the right question. The right question is, “What can we pass that will actually make people’s lives better?” Given the truncated, fearful process Republicans have retreated behind, I’m not persuaded even they believe this bill is the answer. ||||| WASHINGTON—Conservative House Republicans said Monday night that they have enough votes to block the GOP’s legislation to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, as House leaders proposed changes to the bill in a late effort to draw support. 
 
 Rep. Mark Meadows (R., N.C.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers, said more than 21 members opposed the bill, enough to block passage should House leaders hold the... ||||| U.S. President Donald Trump (C) and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price (L) enter the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque 
 
 WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump warned Republican lawmakers on Tuesday that voters could punish them if they do not approve a plan he favors to dismantle Obamacare, applying new pressure in the first major legislative fight of his presidency. 
 
 In one of the few visits he has made to the U.S. Capitol since taking office, Trump told Republicans in the House of Representatives they would face "political problems" for opposing the bill that takes apart Obamacare and partially replaces it. 
 
 "The president was really clear: he laid it on the line for everybody," House Speaker Paul Ryan, the leading proponent of the bill, told reporters. "We made a promise. Now is our time to keep that promise ... If we don't keep our promise, it will be very hard to manage this." 
 
 Attendees at the meeting said Trump singled out lawmakers opposed to the bill by name, doing so in a jovial tone. 
 
 Party leaders hope to move the legislation to the House floor for debate as early as Thursday. But the administration and House leadership can only afford to lose about 20 votes from Republican ranks or risk the bill failing since minority Democrats are united against it. 
 
 Repealing and replacing Obamacare, former President Barack Obama's healthcare reform formally known as the Affordable Care Act, was one of Trump's main campaign promises and has been a goal of Republicans since the law was enacted in 2010. 
 
 Republican Representative Walter Jones said Trump told lawmakers in a closed-door meeting if the Republican bill does not pass, they would face "political problems." Jones said he thought Trump meant lawmakers could lose their seats. 
 
 Republican leaders face a difficult task in uniting their majority. They need to win over conservatives who believe the bill does not go far enough, as well as moderate Republicans who fear it goes too far and that millions of Americans will be hurt by dismantling Obamacare. 
 
 Republican leaders recrafted the bill on Monday to satisfy critics, mainly fellow Republicans, in part by proposing major changes to tax credits and provisions to alter the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people. 
 
 FOCUS ON FREEDOM CAUCUS 
 
 On Trump's brief Capitol Hill visit, Representative Bill Flores said the president predicted House Republicans voting against the bill likely would face primary challenges. He said Trump mentioned Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, saying he eventually would come around to vote for the bill. 
 
 "Mark Meadows, he called out two or three times," Flores told reporters. "The reaction, when he said, 'Mark Meadows, I'm coming after you', was pretty loud cheers ... I think he was tongue-in-cheek, half joking." 
 
 Despite Monday's changes, the Wall Street Journal reported the House Freedom Caucus has enough votes to block the bill. 
 
 Trump, who took office two months ago and has not offered Obamacare repeal legislation of his own, did not talk "a whole lot about the healthcare bill except to vote for it," Jones said. 
 
 The Club for Growth, an influential conservative lobby group, said it would spend at least $500,000 for ads on television and digital platforms urging members of Congress to defeat the bill. 
 
 The Senate also will vote on the legislation and more changes could still be made. 
 
 At a rally in Kentucky on Monday night, Trump said he wanted to add a provision to the bill to lower prescription drug costs through a competitive bidding process. There was no such provision in Monday's changes. 
 
 Republican chairmen for two key committees late Monday said they proposed more funding for tax credits, which conservatives have opposed, that would give the Senate flexibility to help older people afford health insurance. Additionally, Obamacare's taxes would be eliminated in 2017 instead of 2018. 
 
 Monday's amendments also addressed Medicaid, the nation's largest health insurance program that covers about 70 million people, mostly the poor. The changes would allow states to implement work requirements for certain adults and to decide how they receive federal funds. 
 
 The Congressional Budget Office is expected to update its analysis of the legislation with the proposed changes after it said last week the original bill would cause 24 million to lose coverage over the next decade. 
 
 Democrats oppose Republicans' plan, which they say would throw millions off health insurance and hurt the elderly, poor, and working families while giving tax cuts to the wealthy. 
 
 Click tmsnrt.rs/2nO7sj0 for graphic on How U.S. healthcare stacks up under the ACA and AHCA 
 
 (Additional reporting by Jeff Mason Susan Heavey, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Richard Cowan; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Bill Trott and Kevin Drawbaugh)
– The week got off to a rough start for President Trump, but the potential of a smoother finish does exist. The House is expected to vote Thursday on the GOP's ObamaCare replacement, and Trump met with party members Tuesday morning in an effort to bolster support. The meeting follows what Politico describes as an "expansive series of changes" to the bill made Monday night in hopes of doing that very same thing. What you need to know about the amendment, which reportedly came at Trump's behest: Reuters explains the stakes: 216 GOP votes are needed, which means the party can suffer only about 20 defections. There are two major camps of concerned GOP parties: centrists who worry an ObamaCare repeal will hurt their constituents, and fierce conservatives who think the replacement isn't aggressive enough. An $85 billion bone was thrown to moderates, reports Politico, which explains that per the amendment, that amount would be earmarked as tax credits for those ages 50 to 64, whose premiums would soar under the American Health Care Act. For context, it gives this scenario from the Congressional Budget Office: a 64-year-old making $26,500 would see what he pays explode from $1,700 to $14,600. But there's a twist, observes Matthew Yglesias at Vox: The amendment doesn't define those tax credits, instead shifting that task to the Senate. His take: "This is a very unusual way to legislate and reflects House Republicans’ desperation to push through basically anything as soon as possible and pass the buck to the Senate." Also at Vox, Ezra Klein bullets the other substantial changes: The amendment bumps up the repeal of some ObamaCare taxes in a concession to those who want to erase the Affordable Care Act ASAP; prevents the rollover of used tax credit money into a Health Savings Account, ostensibly because anti-abortion activists feared the money could then fund abortions; and gives more wiggle-room around how states handle Medicaid. Klein's take: the "tweaks" are designed to win over conservatives, but don't really address the bill's "flaws." More here. Axios expects "drama" between now and Thursday night, in part because of what the amendment doesn't address. More here. As for what's next, the Washington Post gives context to Trump's Tuesday meetings: They indicate "GOP leaders and the president consider larger-scale talks with key blocs of House members to be essentially complete. The effort now turns toward persuading individual members to vote for the package." The AP reports on the message Trump presented: Pass it or there may be hell to pay, essentially. How Rep. Walter Jones framed it: "If you don't pass the bill there could be political costs," those costs being lost seats. Will it work? The Wall Street Journal reported Monday night that House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Meadows says more than 21 members remain a "nay."