Texas Rejects Expansion of Medicaid
Shocking no one, Perry said in a release this morning that no way, no how would he expand Medicaid.
“If anyone was in doubt, we in Texas have no intention to implement so-called state exchanges or to expand Medicaid under Obamacare,” says the governor. “I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government.”
He dispatched a missive to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius underscoring that point. As in:
In the ObamaCare plan, the federal government sought to force the states to expand their Medicaid programs by — in the words of the Supreme Court — putting a gun to their heads. Now that the “gun to the head” has been removed, please relay this message to the President: I oppose both the expansion of Medicaid as provided in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the creation of a so-called “state” insurance exchange, because both represent brazen intrusions into the sovereignty of our state.
Bump!
...............””I will not be party to socializing health care and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government,” Mr. Perry said.
He joins more than half-dozen GOP governors who have already said they won’t increase the size of their Medicaid programs to cover Americans up to 133 percent of the poverty level, after the Supreme Court upheld most of the law last month but said states could opt out of the Medicaid expansion.
“I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obamacare power grab,” Mr. Perry said. “Neither a ‘state’ exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better ‘patient protection’ or in more ‘affordable care.’ They would only make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care.””..........