In a new ad, Ohio Gov. John Kasich claims he “rejected Obamacare,” a claim that is absolutely false.
This is the same governor who in 2013 unilaterally imposed Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in Ohio and bypassed the Republican-controlled legislature to do so. Yet today he is attempting to pull the wool over New Hampshire voters by telling them he opposed Obamacare.
Watch Kasich lie about his record with a straight face.
Kasich has repeatedly tried to claim the Medicaid expansion was an entirely separate deal from Obamacare, when in fact it is the backbone of controversial healthcare law.
His decision to expand Medicaid has resulted in a huge uptick of Obamacare enrollees, which Ohio taxpayers are now on the hook to pay for. To put it another way,“Kasich’s decision to opt in to Medicaid expansion is responsible for 76 percent of Ohio’s Obamacare enrollment.”
So his claim of “rejecting Obamacare” is a flat-out lie, which isn’t all that out of the ordinary, as politicians often tell falsehoods and half-baked truths to sell themselves as candidates. But what is truly surprising is how shameless Kasich is about it.
Even a nitwit can Google “Kasich Obamacare” and a deluge of articles explaining his actions will pop up. So why is he insulting New Hampshire voters by assuming they don’t know how to work a search engine well enough to find he’s lying through his teeth?
In an interview with the Washington Examiner on Friday, Kasich explained that the Republican-controlled legislature totally loved him for bypassing them in order to expand Medicaid. His ridiculous explanation is that the legislature secretly wanted the expansion, but if they voted in support of it, their chances for reelection would be dashed. Thus, Kasich said he did them a favor by going over their heads, a claim that is completely false.
This isn’t the only whopper he’s told while on the campaign trail in the Granite State, either. During an event in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Kasich took a swipe at opponent Ted Cruz by telling attendees that Kasich doesn’t like to invoke God while campaigning.
“I don’t go out and try to win a vote using God,” he said. “I think that cheapens God.”
Remember, this is same man who has repeatedly used God as his reason for expanding Medicaid and invoked St. Peter during a legislative debate to justify his actions: “Now, when you die and get to the meeting with Saint Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor. You better have a good answer.”
Jason Hart, a friend and former colleague of mine, obsessively catalogues Kasich’s numerous hypocrisies, and has outlined all the times Kasich has cited Matthew 25 as justification for his decision to expand Medicaid.
Here are just a few examples:
‘Now, if you ever read Matthew 25, I think, I wanna feed the hungry and clothe the naked,’ Kasich said when asked about Obamacare at a Jan. 20 event in Pierre, South Dakota.
‘Now, I don’t know whether you ever read Matthew 25, but I commend it to you, the end of it, about do you feed the homeless and do you clothe the poor,’ Kasich told Montana legislators when asked about Obamacare at a Helena press conference the next day.
Kasich cited Matthew 25 when defending his Obamacare expansion during a Fox News interview aired Jan. 22, during a Jan. 22 Hugh Hewitt interview and during an NPR interview aired Friday.
So, Kasich lies. A lot. And apparently he thinks New Hampshire voters are stupid enough to not notice.
