Ohio Gov. John Kasich said the Senate Republican healthcare bill is going to force governors “to choose between children, seniors, the disabled, the addicted, the mentally ill” because there’s not enough funding in the bill.
“If you cut $750 billion out of Medicaid, and in the out years you basically starve the program, we have to choose between children, seniors, the disabled, the addicted, the mentally ill,” Kasich said in an interview with ABC aired Sunday.
Kasich, who has been outspoken opponent of both the American Health Care Act — the House GOP’s bill — and the Better Care Reconciliation Act, said the latter bill concocted by the Senate isn’t going to go far enough to help stem the opioid problem in his state.
“If they’re going to give $45 billion [in funding for addiction treatment] over 10 years, I’m getting almost $300 million, $600 million a year. That would give me a billion over 10 years? Not even quite that. It’s anemic. It’s like spitting in the ocean. It’s not enough,” Kasich said.
Kasich, who said “I don’t know what that means” when asked about President Trump’s proposal to totally repeal the Affordable Care Act as a first step, said Obamacare needs to be fixed and reformed.
But, dismantling the entire bill with no plan to replace it would cause chaos that would harm Americans, he said.
“It can’t be done in a slipshod way just looking at lines on a paper,” Kasich said, “because the lines, actually, are filled with blood, the blood of people that would be affected.”
