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The effects of the long-promised measure to roll back Barack Obama’s signature 2010 legislation would fall mainly on the poor, a fact that has set off opposition from both left and the right. The bill would cut taxes to the tune of about $575 billion over a decade, mainly on the wealthy and health-insurance companies. It would limit money channeled to low-income people, raise costs for older Americans and wind down the expansion of Medicaid. (Trace and Edney, 3/7)

The architecture of the tax credits in the legislation, which House committees are to begin debating Wednesday morning, would offer less help to lower-income Americans than the subsidies provided by the current law. It would steer more money to young adults at the expense of older ones. And it would most benefit consumers living in states in which insurance prices already are relatively low. (Goldstein and Eilperin, 3/7)

Millions of people who get private health coverage through the Affordable Care Act would be at risk of losing it under the replacement legislation proposed by House Republicans, analysts said Tuesday, with Americans in their 50s and 60s especially likely to find coverage unaffordable. Starting in 2020, the plan would do away with the current system of providing premium subsidies based on people’s income and the cost of insurance where they live. Instead, it would provide tax credits of $2,000 to $4,000 per year based on their age. (Goodnough and Abelson, 3/7)

Some Republicans are arguing the rollback of Obamacare would put responsibility on Americans to make better choices as consumers, but one comment this morning didn’t get a great reception. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) told CNN Tuesday that lower-income Americans may have to prioritize spending money on health-care rather than electronic gadgets such as iPhones. (Peterson and Andrews, 3/7)

One Republican lawmaker is defending the replacement for the Affordable Care Act by urging those who can’t afford insurance to forgo purchases like iPhones. "Americans have choices and they’ve got to make a choice. And so maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest it in their own health care. They’ve got to make those decisions themselves,” Jason Chaffetz said on CNN Tuesday morning. Chaffetz was responding to criticism that the GOP replacement for the Affordable Care Act provides a better deal for higher income Americans while leaving poorer Americans worse off. (Prignano, 3/7)

Healthcare is a highly complicated issue that has plagued both political parties in the U.S. for years, not to mention everyday Americans who struggle under huge costs. But Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, seemed to think there was an easy solution to affording healthcare when he appeared on CNN Tuesday morning – just stop buying iPhones. (Irby, 3/7)

The lottery is a famously bad bet. People are more likely to be zapped by lightning while drowning, canonized a saint or hit by an asteroid than win a jackpot. Very few people walk away from the Powerball with massively engorged bank accounts. ... Yet, ten pages into the American Health Care Act, the bill that House Republicans unveiled Monday as the replacement for the Affordable Care Act took aim at lottery winners who receive Medicaid, devoting roughly a tenth of the 60-odd-page bill to lottery winners. (Guarino, 3/8)