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President Trump on Tuesday turned up the pressure on recalcitrant Republicans to support a sweeping bill to overhaul the health care system, threatening wavering lawmakers in his party with political payback if they failed to get behind a measure that has become an early test of his negotiating power. (Davis, Kaplan and Pear, 3/21)

The president told lawmakers a failed vote would be embarrassing to the party and could result in members facing primary challengers and Republicans losing the House, sources said. (Wong, 3/21)

There was laughter and applause inside as the President cajoled reluctant Republicans to get on board. “Look, the guy is very personable,” said Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK). “He speaks bluntly.” (Dupree, 3/21)

[Trump] singled out Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, which has led the right-wing opposition to the bill. “I’m gonna come after you, but I know I won’t have to, because I know you’ll vote ‘yes,’ ” Trump said, according to several lawmakers who attended the meeting. “Honestly, a loss is not acceptable, folks.” Trump’s remarks — which Meadows said he took as good-natured ribbing — reflected his mounting urgency to secure a major legislative victory in the early months of his presidency and fulfill a central campaign promise by repealing the signature domestic achievement of President Barack Obama. (DeBonis, Snell and Costa, 3/21)

"If we fail to get it done, fail to (meet) the promises made by all of us, including the president, then it could have a very detrimental effect to Republicans in '18 who are running for re-election," said Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas. "If it fails, then there will be a lot of people looking for work in 2018. "Trump's message to Republicans: "If you don't pass the bill there could be political costs," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C. (3/21)

Mr. Meadows, whose bloc claims it has enough votes to defeat the bill, said he wasn’t convinced by Mr. Trump—a sign GOP leaders have more work to do to secure the votes needed to pass the bill. “It won’t lower premiums, and until it does, I’m going to be a ‘no,’ even if it sends me home,” Mr. Meadows said of the legislation after the president addressed lawmakers. “As a person, I love him,” said Rep. Rod Blum (R., Iowa), after the president’s presentation. Hearing from Mr. Trump “was a lot of fun. But it didn’t change me at all.” (Armour, Peterson and Hughes, 3/21)

Hours after being singled out by Trump over his opposition to the Republican health care plan, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said his group of conservatives still has the votes to block the bill. Freedom Caucus insiders say the group has 27 members who are firmly against it or leaning "no." (Bade, Bresnahan and Cheney, 3/21)

"I serve at the pleasure of the people of western North Carolina, and when you serve at their pleasure, it's only those 750,000 people that can send you home," Meadows told reporters Tuesday. (Hellmann, 3/21)

Meadows and other conservatives want the legislation to more aggressively scale back the health care law regulations that spell out what insurance plans must cover. GOP leaders have said those changes can't clear Senate rules on reconciliation bills. And the amendments that some Republicans are seeking, lawmakers warned, might not even have a majority support in the Senate. (Mershon and Williams, 3/21)

The morning strategy session at the Capitol was the first time in his two months as president that Trump met with almost the full House Republican Conference that was elected with him in November. The membership reflects the disparate coalition of Republicans who aligned to make him their standard-bearer last year. The question for the party now is whether that ideologically diverse group can govern. (Memoli and Mascaro, 3/21)

At the White House daily press briefing on Tuesday afternoon, press secretary Sean Spicer said that Trump "continues to meet with members and walk away with a very, very optimistic view of where the bill is headed." Spicer also said he didn't want to "rule anything out" with regard to further changes to the bill. (Davis and Keith, 3/21)

President Donald Trump may be hands off when it comes to health policy, but the task of corralling Republicans is right up his alley. His work to close the deal on the GOP bill to repeal Obamacare harks back to his days as a developer who mixed hyperbole with weighty-sounding promises and/or threats to get what he wanted. (Bettelheim and Millman, 3/21)

For a president with a penchant for vengeance — who named “an eye for an eye” as his favorite biblical passage, who banned media outlets from campaign events when he didn’t approve of their coverage, who after the election ousted a GOP state chairman whom he viewed as disloyal, who just last week reminded a GOP governor who hadn’t endorsed him that “I never forget” — the roll-call vote on the Republican health care plan, expected Thursday, will be the first accounting of who’s with him and who’s against him on Capitol Hill. (Goldmacher, 3/21)

President Donald Trump tried to rally Republican lawmakers behind a plan to dismantle Obamacare on Tuesday as U.S. stock markets showed their worst one-day performance since the November election. (Cornwell and Abutaleb, 3/21)

Quorum Health Corp. and other hospital chains fell Tuesday as President Donald Trump went to Capitol Hill to drum up support for a Republican health bill that would repeal parts of Obamacare and add to the number of people who can’t pay their medical bills. Quorum plunged 11 percent to $6.64 at 1:41 p.m. in New York trading, while Community Health Systems Inc. dropped 7.5 percent to $8.23 and Tenet Healthcare Corp. slid 5 percent to $16.65. HCA Holdings Inc., the biggest U.S. hospital chain, fell 1.3 percent to $82.79. (Greifeld, 3/21)

President Trump is like a broken record of Pinocchios, incessantly repeating false and misleading claims that have been debunked. As Congress debates the Republican replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act, Trump has been on a greatest-hits tour of his favorite, and questionable, claims about Obamacare. We compiled a round-up of his most notable claims from the past week. (Lee and Kessler, 3/22)

Making the case for a Republican repeal and replacement of his predecessor's health care law, President Donald Trump reached for a dire-sounding argument that's unsupported by the data. "Many of our best and brightest are leaving the medical profession entirely because of Obamacare," Trump told his audience at a Monday night rally in Louisville, Kentucky. In fact, the number of doctors in the U.S. actively caring for patients grew from 799,501 in 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, to 860,939 in 2015, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. (Drinkard, 3/22)