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Donald Trump holds a fuse in his hands — and he could decide to light it and blow up Obamacare insurance markets as soon as Thursday. That’s the deadline for sending out the next monthly Affordable Care Act subsidies to health plans to defray the cost of care for individuals with low incomes. The president has toyed for months with the idea of stopping the payments to force Democrats to the negotiating table to avoid the prospect of millions of vulnerable Americans losing access to health coverage. (Demko and Dawsey, 7/18)

The health insurance industry’s Obamacare drama reached a climax on Tuesday, but it isn’t over. With Senate Republicans’ failure to advance their bill to replace Obamacare, insurers are facing a summer of uncertainty. President Donald Trump’s administration won’t commit to making critical payments under Obamacare. Health plans have pulled out of some markets, and raised rates in others. And there’s always the chance that Republicans could revive their effort to repeal the law. (Tracer, 7/18)

A failed Republican effort to replace Obamacare raised new concerns on Tuesday for U.S. health insurers over whether the government will continue to fund billions of dollars in medical benefit subsidies. The healthcare bill under consideration in the U.S. Senate would have settled the funding question, but was scrapped after Republican leaders were unable to rally enough party members to win approval. (Humer and Abutaleb, 7/18)

With the Senate’s health care overhaul dead in its current form, Obamacare lives another day. That leaves a familiar Georgia face, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, in charge of implementing the law, one that he’s vilified for the last seven years. (Hallerman, 7/19)

The implosion of the Senate Republicans’ health-care ambitions leaves the Affordable Care Act intact for the moment — but immediately creates worrisome unpredictability for the 10 million Americans who buy health plans through the law’s insurance marketplaces. These consumers could face a rocky few months at the least, as the insurers on which they rely decide how to respond to the political chaos. Some companies could become more skittish about staying in the marketplaces for 2018, while others could try to ratchet up their prices depending on how events in Washington unfold. (Goldstein and Winfield Cunningham, 7/18)

For the health-care system, it’s back to square one. Insurers, hospitals and state officials are facing the prospect that the Affordable Care Act will remain the law of the land for now at least, but they also are left with huge questions about how key aspects of the law will be handled under the Trump administration as deadlines loom for insurers’ decisions about next year. (Wilde Mathews and Evans, 7/18)

Consumers would feel the impact immediately if Republicans repeal "Obamacare" with no replacement. Problems could start this fall for customers buying individual health policies, say independent experts, with more insurers likely to exit state markets around the country, and those remaining seeking higher rates. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 7/19)

Despite repeated attempts by Senate Republicans to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare debate in Washington appears to have collapsed — for now. The United States has much room for improvement when it comes to healthcare, experts said. “The U.S. spends more on healthcare, but we don’t have the same health outcomes [as other countries],” said Cynthia Cox, associate director at Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that researches national health issues. (Etehad and Kim, 7/18)

UnitedHealth Group's second-quarter earnings soared as the nation's largest insurer dove deeper into government-funded health coverage like Medicare and Medicaid and continued to distance itself from the turbulent Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges. (Murphy, 7/18)

UnitedHealth Group Inc. is putting its Obamacare struggles behind it just as Republicans in the Senate are trying to do the same. The biggest U.S. health insurer reported second-quarter results Tuesday showing expanded membership as it moved away from the Affordable Care Act and added customers mainly in the government funded programs for the elderly and poor: Medicare and Medicaid. The company largely quit Obamacare going into this year, after racking up losses selling policies to individuals last year. (Tracer, 7/18)