Watch: Republican Kasich hopes GOP health care bill fails, wants Dems to have more power

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he hopes the House Republicans’ plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, which is currently making its way through Congress, fails, citing concerns that Democrats in Congress haven’t had enough power in the negotiations.

Kasich appeared on CNN’s “AC360” on Friday evening, where he was asked about the House Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace the ACA, the American Health Care Act.

“I don’t think this bill passes the Senate,” said Kasich during the interview. “I sure hope it doesn’t pass the Senate."

“I think the situation is, the roadmap is maybe it will pass the House, maybe it won’t,” Kasich said. “But when it gets to the Senate, we have to involve both parties in the discussion. Because Anderson, look, if you don’t have both parties working on a major issue, it’s not sustainable. Whether it was Social Security, Medicare, the Budget Act of 1997—where we balanced the budget—welfare reform, if you don’t have both parties buying in, it just becomes a political issue in the next campaign. And when the other party wins, they just go ahead and repeal it. That is no way to run America.”

The AHCA is currently facing fierce opposition from two groups in Congress with radically different political views: conservatives in the Republican Party and the entire Democratic Party, which wants to keep Obamacare in place.

Congressional conservatives, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), say the AHCA is “Obamacare lite” and does little to insert free-market reforms back into the health care marketplace, which they believe would lower costs and provide more options for consumers.

Democrats say the Republican bill would cause millions of people to lose their health insurance and could lead to dramatic increases in the cost of health insurance.

During the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton said the best way to fix Obamacare would be for the government to offer a “public option” in the health insurance marketplace. A public-option plan would allow consumers to buy health insurance plans from the government or a quasi-government organization, if they choose. Because the government doesn’t need to earn a profit, it can offer health insurance at a significantly lower rate, which free-market advocates say would eventually force most insurers out of business, substantially reducing the quality of health insurance plans across the country.