Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Kasich Takes Pitch To Save Medicaid Expansion To White House
A meeting Friday afternoon between President Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, his former rival in the GOP primaries, had no set agenda. But Kasich came armed with one anyway: his hope to blunt drastic changes to the nation鈥檚 health-care system envisioned by some conservatives in Washington. Over the next 45 minutes, according to Kasich and others briefed on the session, the governor made his pitch while the president eagerly called in several top aides and then got Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on the phone. At one point, senior adviser Jared Kushner reminded his father-in-law that House Republicans are sketching out a different approach to providing access to coverage. 鈥淲ell, I like this better,鈥 Trump replied, according to a Kasich adviser. (Eilperin and Goldstein, 2/26)
The governor suggested on "Face the Nation" Sunday that conservative members of Congress would be the the biggest obstacle to passing an Obamacare replacement law. Kasich: "I think there are some very conservative Republicans in the House who are going to say just get rid of the whole thing. And that's not acceptable when you have 20 million people, or 700,000 people in my state, because where do the mentally ill go? Where do the drug addicted go?" (Pelzer, 2/27)