Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Sunday flatly rejected the idea of first repealing Obamacare and then coming up with a replacement strategy later, saying such an approach will harm the people of his state.
Mr. Kasich, a Republican and frequent critic of President Trump dating back to their battles in the 2016 GOP presidential primary, repeated his call for bipartisanship in finding a long-term solution for health care.
“No, you just can’t get rid of this, because you can’t leave people without what they need,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “What happens, people will lose their health care.”
He said it’s incumbent upon party leadership to find the common ground necessary for a lasting answer.
“Both sides have to have a willingness to achieve something and then both sides have to kind of back off and give some space to the other side,” he said. “You don’t put somebody in a corner. You don’t put an animal in the corner without the animal striking back, you don’t put a politician in the corner and without them expecting to strike back at you.”
Mr. Trump and other Republicans in recent days have expressed interest in first passing a clean Obamacare repeal bill and then figuring out a replacement at some point in the future.
Top Democrats also oppose such a plan.
“That idea is an absurd idea,” Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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