The governors’ comments underscore a dynamic that has long been obscured by the polarizing debate over the Affordable Care Act in Washington. While opposition to the law is nearly unanimous among Republicans in Congress, the politics of health care are far more complicated in the states. After the Supreme Court ruled that states can opt out of the Medicaid expansion once mandated by Obamacare, some GOP-led states chose to expand the program while others did not. And in states that did participate, their Republican governors have sought to take credit for its success in reducing the ranks of the uninsured. “There has also been a huge drop in the number of people showing up at hospitals without insurance, which is a positive trend that has saved millions of dollars in Michigan’s health-care system,” Snyder said in a statement. “The program has been a great success and a model for other states to follow.”

Under the terms of Obamacare, the federal government covered the full cost of expanding Medicaid for three years through 2016, and while states must now begin to chip in, they will still rely on Congress for the bulk of funding going forward. “It’s highly unlikely” that states like Michigan and Ohio will be able to cover their newly insured residents if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, said Edwin Park, vice president for health policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ohio and Michigan would stand to lose a combined $86 billion in federal funds under repeal, according to an analysis released last month by the Urban Institute.

While Kasich and Snyder are the first GOP governors to speak out, others could follow. Because of the party’s success in state-level elections during the Obama era, there are Republican governors in two-thirds of the states, including more than a dozen that expanded Medicaid. Unlike Kasich and Snyder, some GOP governors, like Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas, inherited Medicaid expansions that were initiated by a Democratic predecessor. Hutchinson has made clear that he opposed Obamacare, and he’s pushing the incoming Trump administration to allow Arkansas to tighten eligibility rules for Medicaid. “We have to work with what we have right now,”said his spokesman, J.R. Davis. As for what Congress might do, Hutchinson is in wait-and-see mode. “You don’t want to overreact,” Davis said.

Will Republican governors have any influence over their GOP colleagues in Washington? “On the margins, a little bit,” predicted Doug Heye, a party strategist who served as a top aide to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Governors tend to make their voices heard in one-on-one conversations with members of their state delegations. So Kasich would likely try to lobby Senator Rob Portman or Representative Pat Tiberi, a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. (The governor might have had more success a couple years ago, when Ohio’s own John Boehner was still speaker.) And Snyder would have to lean on Representative Fred Upton, who until last month served as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid.