Governors in both parties attack health care reform

State leaders call for bipartisan approach to find alternative.

A quiet WASHINGTON — effort by governors to block full repeal of the Affordable Care Act reached its climax in Washington on Tuesday, as state executives in both parties who have conspired privately for months mounted an all-out attack on the Senate’s embattled health care legislation.

At the center of the effort has been a pair of low-key moderates: Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, and Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., who on Tuesday morning called on the Senate to reject the Republican bill and negotiate a bipartisan alternative.

Hours before Senate Republicans delayed a vote on the bill, Kasich denounced his own party’s legislation in biting terms, saying that it would victimize the poor and mentally ill, and redirect tax money “to people who are already very wealthy.”

“This bill,” Kasich said, “is unacceptable.”

But the governor-led drive to block the Republican health care bill extends well beyond Kasich and Hickenlooper. Aiding their cause has been an eclectic array of ideological mavericks and quirky personalities in both parties, who have feared the harm that repealing the Affordable Care Act could cause in their states.

More than half a dozen Republican governors have expressed grave reservations about the bill or outright opposition to it, and Democrats have been unanimous in their criticism. Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada condemned the measure in forceful language and helped sway his fellow Republican, Sen. Dean Heller, to dig in against it. Heller’s unrestrained attack on the bill Friday helped set in motion a chain of events that forced Republicans to delay voting on it and may lead to its ultimate collapse.

On Monday, a second bipartisan team of governors, Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a Democrat, and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican, issued a joint letter asking the Senate to halt its dash toward a vote.

In an indication of the stakes involved for the states, McAuliffe and Baker wrote explicitly in their capacity as chairman and vice chairman of the National Governors Association — a striking gesture given the nonpartisan organization’s reputation for caution in politically sensitive matters.

“On behalf of the National Governors Association, we urge you to give states sufficient time to review the legislation before proceeding, so that the full impact of the legislation may be understood and explained to the American people,” they wrote.

The doggedness of the governor-led effort reflects the expansive implications of a federal health care overhaul for state governments. In states that accepted expanded Medicaid funding under the Affordable Care Act, including Ohio and Nevada, the sharp restrictions on the program imposed under the Senate bill would batter state budgets and threaten the health coverage of millions.

The current Senate bill would wind down support for expanded Medicaid coverage and recalculate federal funding for longstanding Medicaid programs on a more restrictive basis. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected on Monday that the Senate bill would lead to 15 million fewer people receiving Medicaid coverage over a period of 10 years.

There has been no visible effort among governors to lobby in support of the legislation, and most Republican governors have either remained silent or given equivocal statements on the bill. Several advisers to Republican governors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were wary of engaging in a fight with the White House and the Republican-led Congress over a bill that appeared headed for collapse anyway.

But if the legislation does unravel further, governors will have played a hand in that: Hickenlooper said in an interview that he and Kasich had agreed to team up after a February meeting of the governors’ association in Washington, where state leaders heard an alarming presentation about the potential consequences of a federal pullback in health care.

Within weeks, Hickenlooper said, both Kasich and Sandoval had called him personally to seek his help in taking on their own party. Kasich, he recalled, expressed confidence he could find other Republicans who would “take a pretty strong stand that coverage shouldn’t be rolled back.”

From those conversations emerged a tentative game plan: They would seek to assemble a nimble, informal group of governors, from the right and left of center, who would publicly express concern about health care legislation drafted in the House and Senate. They would press for a slower, less disruptive and more public legislative process, and insist on protections for states that had greatly expanded Medicaid rolls. Joining Kasich and Sandoval, on the Republican side, was Baker of Massachusetts. On the Democratic side, Hickenlooper recruited Steve Bullock of Montana, John Bel Edwards of Louisiana and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Kasich’s neighbor to the east. Other governors on the Republican side have drifted in and out of the conversations, including Rick Snyder of Michigan and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas.

MARK WILSON / GETTY IMAGES Colorado Democrat John Hickenlooper (left) and Ohio Republican John Kasich are at the center a group of state governors who are urging the U.S. Senate to reject a health care reform bill and negotiate a bipartisan alternative.