Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Friday that he’s opposed to the House Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, and said the GOP should be working with Democrats as they work to change federal healthcare policy.
Kasich, the Republican governor who expanded the Medicaid program under Obamacare, said Republicans were “jamming something through that’s going to take health coverage away from millions of people.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they pass something, but I’m not for it,” he said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington.
Though he said he agreed that Obamacare needed significant reform, he said he opposed making major cuts to Medicaid, though he supports additional flexibility in the states. The plans, he said, must also include coverage for mental illness and addiction treatment.
When asked whether he supported the most recent amendment to the American Health Care Act, which would allow states to waive certain Obamacare protections, he replied that he hadn’t studied the details, but called them “window dressing” that were “designed to get votes.”
He told reporters that he did, however, want states to have additional flexibility on Medicaid by having the ability to exclude certain drugs from their formularies to have leverage against pharmaceutical companies.
“You have two choices: Negotiate with them or exclude them,” he said of reducing spending on drug prices. Kasich also proposed something Republicans haven’t done yet in Congress: work with Democrats.
“If you involve the Democrats and say, ‘What do you think?’ I think you would have a bill and it would be constructive,” he said.
Kasich, who ran against President Trump for the Republican nomination for president, has previously said that he believes Obamacare should be fixed rather than repealed. He said he believed Trump wanted to push a healthcare bill forward, regardless of the details of the legislation.
“I happen to believe he doesn’t really care what the plan is,” he said.
