Tipsheet

Rick Perry: Texas Will Not Be Implenting ObamaCare

Texas governor and former GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry sent a rejection letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today saying Texas will not be implementing ObamaCare in its entirety.

Texas will not expand Medicaid or establish a health insurance exchange, two major tenets of the federal health reform that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last month, Gov. Rick Perry said in an early morning announcement.

"I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obamacare power grab," he said in a statement. "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."

“If anyone was in doubt, we in Texas have no intention to implement so-called state exchanges or to expand Medicaid under Obamacare," Perry said in a statement. "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."

As governor, Perry took on healthcare reform through tort reform by reducing frivolous lawsuits in the state and decreased some of the costs of heathcare by implementing a "loser pay all" system.