Axios

A Health and Human Services spokesperson reports that phone calls and digital outreach to enroll in ACA will continue through the January 31 deadline to get coverage, according to Politico. That's a partial reversal. The HHS suspended Obamacare ads yesterday. What they told Politico:

"Once an assessment was made, we pulled back the most expensive and least efficient part of this massive ad campaign which was set to run over the weekend," said an HHS spokesman. "Those costs savings will be returned to the U.S. Treasury."

The cancelled ads will save about $4 million to $5 million.

The Washington Post has a recording of a closed door meeting of House and Senate GOP members debating Obamacare repeal can be summed up like so. As the Post writes: "The recording reveals a GOP that appears to be filled with doubts about how to make good on a long-standing promise to get rid of Obamacare without explicit guidance from President Trump or his administration."

There seems to be no consensus amongst Republican lawmakers on how, or even if, to repeal the law. Additionally, the plan for controversial issues like Medicaid overhaul and the defunding of Planned Parenthood remains murky.

Why they're worried:

We'd better be sure that we're prepared to live with the market we've created ... That's going to be called Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we'll be judged in the election less than two years away. — Rep. Tom MacArthur

Health insurers are getting a bit stressed over the Trump administration's decision to pull Obamacare advertising in the final days of open enrollment. Here's what Kristine Grow, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the main health insurance trade group, said in a statement this afternoon:

At a time when the individual market faces challenges, we need as many people as possible to participate — so that costs go down for everyone. Balancing out the risk pool is an important action that can be taken now to help stabilize the market, improve affordability, and send strong signals as health plans develop their products for 2018.

Trump administration officials say they're mainly targeting $4 million to $5 million in TV and radio ads, and that the other sources of Obamacare enrollment information — like the website, the call center, Twitter, etc. — will still be available. "We aren't going to continue spending millions of taxpayers' dollars promoting a failed government program," said an HHS spokesman. "Once an assessment was made, we pulled back the most expensive and least efficient part of this massive ad campaign which was set to run over the weekend."

Why insurers are worried: There's usually a last-minute enrollment surge for Obamacare, mainly from young adults — but that was always when the Obama administration was making a heavy sales pitch. Last year, nearly 687,000 people signed up in the final week.

One Obamacare replacement idea that resurfaced in Philadelphia Thursday: House Budget Committee chairwoman Diane Black said the "reconciliation" bill could include a provision to let health insurance be sold across state lines. That's not surprising since it's been on the Republican agenda for years, but state insurance commissioners hate the idea — and they spoke out against it just earlier this week.

In a letter to top Republicans and Democrats on the two House health committees, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the state lines idea would be imposed "by federal edict ... Such federal actions would strip states of the ability to protect consumers and create competitive markets and should be rejected." That's a political fight the Republicans may not have had to face before, but they will now.