Republican Governors Who Pushed for Obamacare Expansion of Medicaid Lose in the Long Run?

This is interesting.  From Jim Geraghty at NRO: “Early-state GOP voters are particularly wary about expanding Medicaid.”

“Flip-flopping to embrace Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion has real consequences,” said Tarren Bragdon, CEO of the Foundation for Government Accountability. “GOP voters in critical early-primary states have low opinions of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and are very clear in their opposition to a governor who supports it. Republican governors like Mike Pence, John Kasich, and Terry Branstad [of Iowa] may have doomed their presidential campaigns before they even begin.”

Geraghty also notes,

Governors Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Rick Perry of Texas, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin opposed the expansion.

While it’s far from clear that the issue of Medicaid expansion would be decisive in a 2016 Republican presidential primary, the survey suggests it would be favorable ground for a rival’s attacks.

It’s reassuring to hear that there might eventually be some political consequences for making this unforced, clearly bad policy choice (see, e.g., the Buckeye Institute, one of the National Review editorials on the subject, another).  Here in Ohio, Governor Kasich is great in some ways, but the way he forced Medicaid expansion—circumventing the legislature after we worked hard to change legislators’ minds and actually succeeded in getting them to oppose expansion (our side then sued and said his maneuver was illegal, we lost)—was dirty, and the way he characterized those who disagreed with him (actually adopting the liberal line that we don’t love the poor) was pretty ugly.  If he has to remain confined to Ohio in 2016 and make room for a President Walker (or whoever it might be), that will be at least some comeuppance.