Ohio Gov. John Kasich is breaking with the Republican Party and working to protect Medicaid expansion, National Review reported.
Cutting the Obamacare Medicaid expansion "is a very, very bad idea, because we cannot turn our back on the most vulnerable," the governor told CNN in February.
"When people say in my state we should drop 700,000 people, a third of whom are mentally ill or drug-addicted and a quarter of whom are chronically ill, and we should turn our back on them, that’s not America," Kasich told CNN in March. "That's not a country that loves all of its citizens. That is really extreme. Frankly, it borders on mean."
He told The New York Times last week: "I don't have a problem with phasing down the enhanced federal payments. But it can't be done overnight, and it has to be done with the resources and the flexibility that are needed so people don't get left behind. You just can't be cutting off coverage for people."
In a letter to congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Kasich and six other governors argue against the GOP's Obamacare replacement, the American Health Care Act.
"It calls into question coverage for the vulnerable and fails to provide the necessary resources to ensure that no one is left out, while shifting significant costs to the states," they wrote, according to the Sandusky Register. "Medicaid provisions included in this bill are particularly problematic."
A spokeswoman for Gov. Kasich, Emmalee Kalmbach, told the Register that "Gov. Kasich doesn't support the expansion phase out; however, he would support the enhanced match phase out with the resources and the flexibility that are needed so people don't get left behind."
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