Wisconsin voters were treated to a live look at Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s Medicaid expansion spin during a March 29 CNN town hall in Milwaukee.
Kasich bristled when a town hall attendee challenged the governor’s expansion of Medicaid under the 2010 federal health law.
“Why did you choose Obamacare? Why did you choose the Washington-based solution?” the man asked. “And why can’t you guys ever look at some other source other than Washington for these solutions?”
Kasich said he expanded Medicaid only after slowing Ohio’s Medicaid spending growth from 10.5 percent to 2.5 percent. During Kasich’s first term, Ohio Medicaid spending grew by 33 percent.
“Now that my program was under control, I then had a choice,” Kasich said. “Could I bring money back, which is frankly our money, Ohio money, back to Ohio to solve some of our problems.”
This is a talking point Kasich has used since 2013, but Medicaid expansion is not paid for with “Ohio money.” Medicaid expansion is paid for with billions in new deficit spending from a federal government $19 trillion in debt.
Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service have affirmed that Medicaid expansion’s total cost increases with each state that signs on. There’s no Obamacare lockbox of “Ohio money” for Kasich to bring “back to Ohio.”
Kasich’s spirited defense of Medicaid expansion didn’t stop there.
“Where we are in Ohio, is we are now treating the mentally ill, the drug addicted, the working poor, they’re in a better position, they’re not in our prisons, and at the same time, they’re getting on their feet, they’re becoming taxpayers and our Medicaid program is completely under control,” Kasich said.
Obamacare expansion makes anyone with income at or below 138 percent of the poverty line eligible for Medicaid. The program is not in any sense restricted to drug addicts or the mentally ill, and includes no work requirements.
“I reject Obamacare,” Kasich insisted. The optional Medicaid expansion he forced onto Ohio is responsible for three-fourths of the Buckeye State’s Obamacare enrollment.
Expanding Medicaid, Kasich added, “was not only compassionate, but it also made good economic sense for our state and it’s working out quite well.”
The Kasich administration projected 447,000 Ohioans would enroll in Medicaid expansion by 2020. Actual enrollment is already 670,000.
Later during the Milwaukee town hall, another audience member asked Kasich to discuss a time he has “shown moral courage in the face of public opposition.”
Pointing to Obamacare expansion — a policy supported by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, hospital lobbyists, labor unions, and every major newspaper — as an example, Kasich said, “I knew it wasn’t going to be all that popular.”
Democrats supported Medicaid expansion because they knew it was a central pillar of Obamacare. The Ohio Republican Party supported Medicaid expansion because the party is run by Kasich loyalists.
Despite intense pressure from the governor and other Obamacare supporters, Republicans in the Ohio House and Ohio Senate passed a ban on Medicaid expansion in 2013. Kasich vetoed the ban and expanded Medicaid unilaterally.
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