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Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson used part of his speech Tuesday night at the Republican convention to bash Hillary Clinton over health care — without mentioning the way he has earned scorn from conservatives by the way he has implemented Obamacare in his own state. (Temple-West, 7/19)

Speaking at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Donald Trump Jr. touted his father, the newly anointed GOP presidential nominee, as someone who would be able to do a better job on health care than his rival, Hillary Clinton. He said his father would be "a president who will repeal and replace Obamacare without leaving our most vulnerable citizens without health care, and who will do it without destroying Medicare for seniors, as Hillary Clinton has proposed." ... Clinton is certainly not proposing that in a literal sense, and experts we contacted agreed that her actual policy proposals -- especially making Medicare an option for those between 55 and 65 -- were ambitious but were hardly a dagger at the heart of the program. We rate the claim False. (Jacobson, 7/19)

A top GOP chairman on Tuesday shot down one of Donald Trump’s most high-profile healthcare pitches: allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. When asked at a healthcare panel at the Republican National Convention if he would back Trump's proposal, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) flatly said, "No," prompting laugher in the room. (Ferris, 7/19)

The Republican Party platform released Monday at the 2016 convention is strongly conservative on social issues related to healthcare and contains little in the way of new ideas. The platform calls for a halt to the Affordable Care Act, shifting Medicare to a premium support model and turning Medicaid into a capped state block grant program. (Muchmore, 7/19)

The Republican party’s 2016 platform, unveiled Monday, echoes many of the proposals included in the health care plan House Republicans laid out last month. The platform calls for the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act and for state control of insurance markets. It backs selling insurance across state lines and states that insurance should be more portable so that consumers can move from job to job with the same policy. (McIntire, 7/19)

A terrifying word circulated Tuesday at the Republican National Convention: norovirus. A dozen staffers in the California delegation who had arrived in Cleveland early have fallen ill with the extremely contagious virus, California GOP chairman Jim Brulte said. (Achenbach, Izadi and O'Keefe, 7/19)

The first signs of illness, thought to be norovirus, the highly contagious intestinal illness, appeared on Thursday night, just after the staff members arrived in the Cleveland area. By early Monday, symptoms had sufficiently spread among the group to notify the Erie County Health Department. (Purdy, 7/19)

A handful of Republican staff members in Cleveland for the GOP convention were reported to be suffering Tuesday from a possible norovirus infection. And if there are a few people with norovirus, it’s likely there will be more. As many as 11 members of the California delegation’s advance team are showing symptoms that are consistent with the norovirus, according to Peter Schade, the Erie County health commissioner, who is investigating the outbreak. They are staying at a hotel in Sandusky, Ohio, about an hour from Cleveland. (Branswell and Kaplan, 7/19)

Eleven Californians -- who arrived for planning meetings in Cleveland ahead of the Republican National Convention and are now staying at Kalahari resort -- contracted a disease resembling norovirus, Erie County health officials said Tuesday. The infected individuals were not delegates, but rather a group that planned activities and provided logistical support in Cleveland last week, Erie County Health Commissioner Pete Schade said. (Cooley, 7/19)

A dozen California Republican staff members and volunteers staying at the delegation’s hotel an hour outside Cleveland for the national convention have come down with norovirus, the highly contagious bug that inflames the stomach and intestines and causes diarrhea and vomiting. Cynthia Bryant, executive director of the state GOP, wrote in an email early Tuesday that officials are taking the necessary steps to care for the health of their staff and the more than 550 members of the delegation and their guests. Party support staff arrived last week ahead of the guests, so there’s concern about the virus spreading quickly in the closed environment. (Cadelago, 7/19)

RNC delegates should wash their hands with soap and water to keep any worries of norovirus at bay, doctors say. The highly contagious stomach bug – which members of California's delegation have symptoms of – may be resistant to hand sanitizer. ... Eleven Californians, who arrived for planning meetings ahead of the Republican National Convention and are now staying at Kalahari resort in Sandusky, showed signs of illness on Thursday, the Erie County health commissioner said. (Cooley, 7/19)