CRITICAL VOTE – AT 10:22 A.M. ET:  The House is expected to vote today on the GOP's new health-care plan.   The vote will be close, but the House leadership says it has the support it needs to see the bill through to victory.  From Reuters: 

WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives was set on Thursday for a cliffhanger vote to repeal Obamacare, as Republican leaders worked to deliver President Donald Trump a win for one of his top legislative priorities.

House Republican leaders have expressed confidence the bill would pass and several party moderates who previously objected to it got behind it on Wednesday, giving the effort new momentum.

Still, the vote was expected to be close. Even if the measure passes the House, it faces daunting odds in the Senate where Republicans hold a narrower majority.

Keen to score his first major legislative win since taking office in January, Trump threw his own political capital behind the bill, meeting lawmakers and calling them in an effort to cajole their support.

Trump, whose Republican party controls both the House and Senate, is seeking to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Aides said he worked the phones furiously.

An active and serious president, not afraid to get in the trenches and fight.  Compare please to the last gent.

Wavering moderate Republicans had worried that the legislation to overhaul President Barack Obama's 2010 signature healthcare law would leave too many people with pre-existing medical conditions unable to afford health coverage.

But the skeptical Republican lawmakers got behind the bill after meeting with Trump to float a compromise proposal that is still expected to face unanimous Democratic opposition.

The legislation's prospects brightened further after members of the Freedom Caucus, a faction of conservative lawmakers in the House who played a key role in derailing the original version of the bill last month, said they could go along with the compromise.

Millions more Americans got healthcare coverage under Obamacare, but Republicans have long attacked it, seeing it as government overreach and complaining it drives up costs.

COMMENT:  Republicans need a legislative victory on behalf of Trump.  The fact that the GOP in the House, after not being able to pass an earlier version of the bill, came back and tried again, is very commendable.  Some argued after that first defeat that they should have abandoned the issue, but they refused.  Give an A for effort. We're watching for today's vote.

May 4, 2017