Kasich has made the moral case for embracing the ACA's Medicaid expansion. That's got to be a tough sell in a GOP primary.
In the primaries four years ago Rick Perry got himself into trouble by supporting compassion for immigrant children and charging that opponents of DREAM-esqe legislation are heartless ("
If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they have been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart."). That didn't go over well with the base, as I recall.
Kasich has arguably gone further,
implying opponents of Obama's Medicaid expansion are going to hell: "
Now, when you die and get to the meeting with St. 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." How are the poor-bashing, ACA-despising ogres in the base going to like it when he holds a mirror up to them?