Kasich, Jordan pan replacement bill
WASHINGTON — In dueling appearances on talk shows Sunday, 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 Obamacarereplacement 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 subsidies to those with no tax liability, and he vowed to fight any extension of the existing Medicaid expansion.
Taken together, the two offer a window into the real problems the GOP will have in passing this bill: One part of the party is concerned that it goes too far; the other worries that it doesn’t go far enough.
“Look, the bill needs fixed,” Kasich said 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.”
The governor calls for enlisting Democrats, saying that fellow Republicans are trying to jam the bill through Congress without Democrats — a mistake that he said Democrats made in passing Obamacare back in 2010.
Kasich, who expanded Medicaid under the 2010 law despite concerns among some in his party, said that expansion has covered about 700,000 people in the state, including a large population of the mentally ill, the drugaddicted 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.”
The governor said the House bill does not provide adequate aid for the drugaddicted, 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 said.
Kasich said he thinks the House will pass the current bill, but he is hopeful it will be changed in the Senate. Among those who have expressed concerns about the bill’s impact on the Medicaid population is Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. The Republican Governors Association, of which Kasich is a part, has been working with the Senate.
Jordan, meanwhile, has called for a clean repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, saying the House 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 the 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 as it is written will not win passage in the House. He is the co-founder of the conservative Freedom Caucus, which has nearly 40 members. If more than half of those Republicans unite in opposition to the bill, its chances of House passage will be grim.
Wallace asked Jordan if he is 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.
Jordan said that is a false choice. “We’d like a chance to amend (the bill), change it and make it consistent with the message we told the voters we were going to accomplish.”
Both Jordan and Kasich say they think Trump is open to negotiation. Jordan, pressed by Wallace, would not list what the Freedom Caucus’ demands are. “We’re working on that,” he said.
Jordan and other Freedom Caucus members are to go to the White House on Tuesday to speak with Trump.
“I think that he’s very open to compromise,” Kasich said of Trump, saying the two have talked about prescription-drug costs. “”I have no doubt that he would be flexible. He just wants to get something through.”
Kasich criticized other Republicans for being too focused on fulfilling campaign promises at the risk of hurting some constituents.
“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.”