Ohio GOP Governor John Kasich is taking heat for saying that Obamacare will not be repealed, even if the GOP takes the Senate (it will) on election day. The truth is that Kasich is right: nine GOP governors have already expanded Medicaid for their low income residents and more will do so.
Instead of pursuing outright repeal, GOP Governors have generally sought to wring concessions from the White House to help make Medicaid expansion more politically palatable to in-state GOP lawmakers and conservative voters. While not completely mollifying these constituencies, the act of ‘beating up Obama’ to achieve concessions has helped move the issue from the front burner to the back burner.
So while Obamacare repeal remains a sloganeering mainstay on the campaign trail, it won’t happen due to a reality pointed out by Kasich.
The Ohio governor notes that millions of citizens across the nation now have a tangible benefit that the GOP would ‘take away’ if Obamacare was repealed in totality. Any ‘replacement’ law would require a means by which these newly uninsured state residents would get covered. Thus, this means tangling with the need for new revenues and regulatory regimes.
It’s not going to happen, so the best course of realistic action remains modification of the law at the federal level and a continuation of governors demanding concessions as Medicaid expansion continues.
Gordon Hensley