Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Monday his state won’t expand Medicaid or set up an insurance exchange, joining a growing number of Republican governors who are rejecting two key parts of President Obama’s health care law.
“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.
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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.”
Under the court’s decision, states can still collect all of their existing Medicaid funding even if they don’t expand their programs to cover Americans up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. But if they don’t set up exchanges, the law allows the federal government to step in and run them.
