Kasich Skirts Fellow Republicans to Expand Ohio Medicaid
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As Congressional Republicans’ 16-day fight to defund President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul dissolved, Ohio Governor John Kasich was trying to find a way around his party to expand Medicaid under the law.
Kasich, having failed to persuade Republican lawmakers to add 275,000 adults to the state-federal health program, will ask the seven-member Ohio Controlling Board, a separate legislative panel that considers agency spending requests, to vote Oct. 21 on taking federal money for the expansion. Almost two-thirds of the 60 Republican state representatives, including Speaker William Batchelder, protested the move yesterday.