After several Republican governors warmed up to the Medicaid expansion in recent weeks and months, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) reiterated Monday that his state will not be expanding its health care program for the poor, a key element of President Obama’s health care reform law, Reuters reported.
“Texas will not be held hostage by the Obama administration’s attempt to force us into the fool’s errand of adding more than a million Texans to a broken system,” Perry said at a news conference at the state Capitol, noting that “April Fool’s Day is the perfect day to discuss something as foolish as Medicaid expansion.”
Perry was joined Monday by Texas Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. The Medicaid expansion in Texas would give health insurance to over 1 million low-income Texans by 2017, according the Reuters report.
Protestors in favor of the expansion held court outside the conference, chanting lines like “Rick Perry, take the money.”
Perry also made a prediction about the states which have decided to expand Medicaid, according to Politico’s reporting on the event. “They will come to rue the day because Medicaid will take a larger and larger share of their state budgets,” Perry said.
