In case you didn't know, Gov. Rick Perry doesn't think much of the Affordable Care Act - aka Obamacare.
He lead the charge to make sure Texas didn't participate in the voluntary expansion of people eligible for Medicaid coverage. And he was an early -- and often vocal opponent -- of the state creating a healthcare exchange under the ACA.
This week, because the state is defaulting to a federally-run exchange, the Texas Department of Insurance said it would not be enforcing provisions and protections in that exchange.
So today, as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius visits Austin and San Antonio to promote the Oct. 1 launch of the federal insurance exchange, Perry took another swing at the President and the ACA.
Here's the full text of his short press release e-mailed this morning:
“Today, Secretary Sebelius is back in Texas to again explain the increasingly-convoluted, and increasingly-delayed, implementation of the federal exchange system. With due respect, the secretary and our president are missing the point: It’s not that Americans don’t understand Obamacare, it’s that we understand it all too well. In Texas, we’ve been fighting Obamacare from the beginning, refusing to expand a broken Medicaid system and declining to set up a state health insurance exchange. We took these steps to minimize the damage Obamacare will cause to our economy and state budget, although we’re all too aware Obamacare will still cause our state immense budgetary challenges in the years ahead, just like it will to families and small businesses across our country.”
KUT will have more on Secretary Sebelius' visit to Texas this afternoon.
