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The health care bill that squeaked through the US House of Representatives Thursday threatens to blow a hole in the Massachusetts budget and undermine the state’s near-universal access to insurance. That was the assessment of elected officials, health care advocates, policy experts, and industry leaders after the House approved legislation to repeal and replace huge portions of former president Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. (Dayal McCluskey, 5/5)

Republican Governor Charlie Baker said Thursday that he’s “disappointed” in the US House vote to replace the Affordable Care Act. In a statement posted to Twitter, Baker said the bill in its current form would harm Massachusetts and urged the Senate to reject it. (Prignano, 5/4)

House Republicans clinched a political victory Thursday with a nail-biting vote to pass the much-discussed American Health Care Act — a bill that aims to replace large swaths of Obamacare. What could this mean for you? Much is still unknown about exactly how the bill's provisions would unfold, and whether the Senate will agree to it. But if the bill becomes law, it could affect many Illinois residents, including those who get insurance through their employers, those who buy their own plans and those who are Medicaid recipients. (Schencker, 5/4)

The final tally — 217 to 213 — reflected the deep partisan divide over the future of the nation's health care system. Nevertheless, the initial success of the GOP’s proposal marked an important milestone for House Republican leaders and the Trump administration, who ran for office on a pledge to throw out Obamacare. In the Michigan congressional delegation, the vote split cleanly along party lines: nine Republicans for the bill and five Democrats casting no votes. (Dolan, 5/4)

New Jersey and Pennsylvania could be among the biggest losers in the Affordable Care Act replacement plan that squeaked through the House on Thursday, policy experts said, and for reasons that have gotten little public attention. One example: Both states devote more of their Medicaid spending to seniors and disabled people combined than almost anyplace else in the country. Care for these groups is especially costly, and the GOP plan would not keep pace with their needs. So the states could be forced to cut benefits or raise taxes to maintain services that many people do not consider optional. (Sapatkin, 5/4)

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper blasted the U.S. House of Representative’s passage of the American Health Care Act on Thursday, saying that the bill, “threatens to end health insurance coverage for hundreds of thousands of hard working Coloradans.” Hickenlooper’s lieutenant governor, former health care executive Donna Lynne, said the AHCA scrambles the state’s health safety net. “We are going to have to reconstruct a whole new health system because of this,” she said. (Ingold and Frank, 5/4)

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said the health care bill passed by House Republicans Thursday "remains woefully short" when it comes to helping vulnerable Ohioans. A Republican who ran for president in 2016, Kasich has been outspoken in his opposition to previous versions of the bill, which would have curtailed the expansion of Medicaid he embraced as governor. (Weiser, 5/4)

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) says the GOP's ObamaCare repeal bill will directly cause people to die if it becoems law. “Well, people are going to lose their lives. People are going to lose their health coverage,” McAuliffe said Friday on CNN’s “New Day.” (Hensch, 5/5)

Many of the 5 million Californians who receive health coverage through the Affordable Care Act risk losing insurance under GOP legislation passed Thursday by the House of Representatives. State and health industry officials said they hoped the U.S. Senate would block the bill or revise it to better protect low-income communities and people with pre-existing conditions. (Caiola, 5/4)

A health-care bill approved by the U.S. House on Thursday to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act would cost Ohio schools millions in Medicaid funding. Medicaid, the tax-funded health-care program for the poor and disabled, helps schools pay for speech therapy, nursing aides, wheelchairs and other services for students with disabilities. It also reimburses schools for health and wellness care to children in poverty. (Candisky, 5/5)

Georgia and other states would have more control over health care  — its rules, spending and benefits — under the bill that passed the U.S. House on Thursday. The revised version of the Republican-backed health bill, approved narrowly in the House, would allow states to get waivers to create insurance regulations much different from the current Affordable Care Act requirements. (Miller, 5/4)

If Congress ultimately replaces Obamacare with the legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday, it could cost Georgia schools. The proposal, yet to be vetted by the Senate, cuts Medicaid by 25 percent over a decade, and schools get a chunk of that money to educate students with disabilities, according to the New York Times. (Tagami, 5/4)

The last Republican attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act sent a jolt through the race to replace Tom Price in Congress. And the latest attempt is again exposing a stark divide between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff on healthcare policy. (Bluestein, 5/4)

They are both small-business owners living miles apart. But like much of the nation this week, Doug Furnell and Trisha Tataryn are split over the vote Thursday by the U.S. House of Representatives to scrap and replace the Affordable Care Act. (Adler and Lowry, 5/4)