AP FACT CHECK: Pence condemns, embraces Obamacare

WASHINGTON – A claim from the vice-presidential debate between Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Tim Kaine, and how it stacks up with the facts:

PENCE: “Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine want to build on Obamacare, they want to expand it into a single-payer program, and for all the world Hillary Clinton just thinks Obamacare is a good start.”

THE FACTS: Pence has been both for and against the Affordable Care Act at different times. He railed against it while in Congress, but one of his chief accomplishments as governor was Indiana’s expansion of Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0 uses federal dollars to help provide health insurance to more than 200,000 low-income Indiana residents who get coverage in exchange for paying a small fee. Pence and his allies have presented the policy as a conservative approach to the Affordable Care Act and have suggested it could be used in other Republican-leaning states that have resisted taking federal money under Obamacare. But he’s taken flak over the law from some conservatives who say no matter what it’s called, it is still a big-government entitlement program.

___

Contributed by Associated Press writer Brian Slodysko.

EDITOR’S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures