Top Ohio Republicans differ on health care
Kasich urges fix of current system; Jordan calls for clean repeal.
— In dueling appearances on talk shows Sunday morning, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan demonstrated the wide range of concerns that varying wings of the GOP have with the current Obamacare replacement bill working its way through the House.
While Kasich urged Republicans and Democrats to work to fix the current system in order to prevent low-income Ohioans from losing access to health care, Jordan, an Urbana Republican, warned against offering subsi-
dies to those with no tax liability and vowed to fight any extension of the current Medicaid expansion.
Taken together, the two offer a window into the very real problems that the GOP will have in passing this bill: One part of the party is concerned it goes too far, the other worries it doesn’t go far enough.
“Look, the bill needs fixed,” said Kasich on NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. “The current system doesn’t work. That’s why it’s possible to get Democrats involved. But you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
He calls for enlisting Democrats, saying that Republicans now are trying to jam through the bill without Democrats; a mistake that he said Democrats made back in 2010.
Kasich, who expanded Medicaid under the 2010 law despite concerns from some in his own party, said that expansion has covered some 700,000 in the state, including a large population of the mentally ill, the drug addicted and those with chronic diseases. They tend to move off that program, he said, but then head to an exchange that is broken.
“The exchange needs to be fixed,” he said, but “don’t kill Medicaid expansion.”
He said the current bill does not provide adequate resources for the drug addicted, mentally ill and chronically ill to see a doctor.
“If I put you on an exchange for your family and I give you a $4,000 tax credit or a $3,000 tax credit, what kind of insurance are you going to buy for $3,000?” he asked.
He said he believes the current bill will pass the House, but he is hopeful it will be changed in the Senate. Among those who have expressed concerns about the current bill’s impact on the Medicaid population is Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
Jordan, meanwhile, has called for a clean repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, saying the current bill does not fulfill the promises that Republicans made to voters during last year’s election cycle.
“We told them we were going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something that’s going to bring down cost of insurance,” he said on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. The current bill “doesn’t do that.”
If Jordan has his say, the bill in its current form will not pass the House. He is the co-founder of the conservative Freedom Caucus, which has nearly 40 members. If more than half unite in opposition to the bill, its chances of passing the House will be grim.
On Fox News Sunday, Wallace asked Jordan as well whether Jordan was prepared to be part of “what could be a death blow” to the early days of the Trump presidency. Trump has been a leading supporter of the bill. But Jordan said it was a false choice. “We’d like a chance to amend it, change it and make it consistent with the message we told the voters we were going to accomplish,” he said.
Both Jordan and Kasich say they believe Trump is open to negotiation, though Jordan, pressed by Wallace, would not list what the Freedom Caucus’ demands are. “We’re working on that,” he said. He and other Freedom Caucus members head to the White House on Tuesday to speak to Trump.
“I think that he’s very open to compromise,” Kasich said of Trump, saying the two have talked about drug costs. “I have no doubt about that he would be flexible. He just wants to get something through.”
He criticized Republicans for being too focused on fulfilling campaign promises at the risk of hurting some of the very constituents they serve.
“If all you focus on in life is what’s in it for me, you’re a loser,” he said. “You are a big time loser. And this country better be careful we’re not losing the soul of our country because we play politics and we forget people who are in need.”