As soon as Air Force One touched down in Indiana on Friday, Gov. Mike Pence met President Barack Obama on the tarmac with a plea: Expand the state's access to government-sponsored health insurance.

The catch: Pence wants to do it with a conservative twist.

At least, that's how he's selling his proposal. And his political future could hinge on whether the first-term Republican can convince conservatives that he's not just rebranding the Affordable Care Act.

Pence has spent much of his first two years in office trying to strike a bargain on one of the health care law's core components. Indiana will expand Medicaid coverage, Pence says, but only if it's allowed to do it through a tweaked version called the "Healthy Indiana Plan," which also requires users to make small payments into health savings accounts.

He spent five minutes chatting with Obama at the Evansville airport, lobbying to have the Health and Human Services Department green-light Indiana's request, before the president visited a factory in Princeton, Indiana.

"The president and I talked through a number of substantive issues that have arisen in our discussions over the Healthy Indiana Plan," Pence said afterward, "and I appreciated the opportunity to call the matter to his personal attention."

He said he also spoke last night with top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and will meet Monday with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.

Pence's focus on a health care expansion is at the center of his effort to evolve from a firebrand conservative congressman to an executive with a record of accomplishment ahead of a White House run that many Republicans close to him see as a question of when -- not if.

As he flirts with a 2016 bid, Pence could be the best test of whether a conservative can run nationally after expanding a government-sponsored health system. Mitt Romney faced hurdles with conservatives during his 2012 presidential bid, in part because of the health care system he put in place when he was the governor of Massachusetts.

Other governors who could seek the 2016 GOP nomination -- including New Jersey's Chris Christie and Ohio's John Kasich -- have accepted the Affordable Care Act's extension of Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of their state's residents.

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Mike Pence talks health care with Obama