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The Republican candidates debated on Saturday night as if it were one last chance to break through and take down their opponents — and for a few of them, it probably was. ... [Donald Trump] ridiculed Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s senior senator, and described Planned Parenthood as a group that provides important health services to women. (He said he disapproved of its role performing abortions.) ... Mr. Kasich continued to call for a lower-key and more genial race, defended his decision to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and said that government has a compassionate role to play in people’s lives, arguing, “Economic growth is not an end unto itself.” (Burns, 2/14)

Donald Trump, facing his toughest scrutiny to date, made his biggest gamble yet in a campaign defined by his convention-busting tactics: trying to win the Republican nomination by attacking the last GOP president. During a heated exchange with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Mr. Trump blamed Mr. Bush’s brother for not stopping the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. ... The ninth Republican presidential debate Saturday in Greenville, S.C., was the most personal, with the candidates frequently shouting over each other and calling each other liars. Mr. Bush locked horns with Ohio Gov. John Kasich over the latter’s decision to expand Medicaid in his state. (O'Connor, Reinhard and Hook, 2/13)

The Columbus Dispatch has you covered. Ohio Gov. John Kasich took his presidential campaign to the state up north Monday and will have another stop there today. (Everhart, 2/16)

John Kasich has an Obamacare problem. The Ohio governor is facing a barrage of attacks over his decision to accept the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare in the wake of his second-place showing in the Republican New Hampshire primary. (Sullivan, 2/13)

Hillary Clinton stepped up a criticism of her Democratic presidential opponent, Bernie Sanders, on Sunday night, telling supporters at a rally in the Las Vegas suburbs that the senator from Vermont would replace their insurance plans with something more expensive. "We both share the goal of universal health-care coverage, but he wants to start all over again," Clinton said. "And he wants to have a new system that would be quite challenging because you would have to give up the insurance you have now, and it would cost a lot of money." (Weigel, 2/14)

With his expansive plans to increase the size and role of government, Senator Bernie Sanders has provoked a debate not only with his Democratic rival for president, Hillary Clinton, but also with liberal-leaning economists who share his goals but question his numbers and political realism. The reviews of some of these economists, especially on Mr. Sanders’s health care plans, suggest that Mrs. Clinton could have been too conservative in their debate last week when she said his agenda in total would increase the size of the federal government by 40 percent. That level would surpass any government expansion since the buildup in World War II. (Calmes, 2/15)

All of them agree on the need to overhaul the scandal-riddled U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and end delays in accessing the health care that veterans were promised. ... White House hopefuls have stressed the issue in debates and town halls. But a closer look at their public platforms shows a vast discrepancy in the level of detail in their plans, ranging from footnoted documents of seven-step plans to bullet points to a single flashcard. (Bergengruen, 2/14)