Texas has the distinction of being the state with the highest rates of the uninsured. Even before the full implementation of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), the fact that children twenty-six years of age and lower qualified for insurance under their parents created a massive help to the young Texas uninsured.
Effective January 1st, 2014, Texans who could not get insurance because of cost or pre-existing conditions will be able to do so. In fact, even the Texas bureaucracy is promoting Obamacare to Texans that were forced into its expensive high-risk health insurance pools. In other words, Obamacare has helped many Texans already and will be helping hundreds of thousands more starting October 1st, 2013 with the opening of the health insurance exchanges set up by Obamacare.
It is shocking that as opposed to quietly acquiescing to his good fortune after having the distinction of have such a lousy healthcare record that Rick Perry would go to another state and call out Obamacare as being a criminal Act.
In a campaign appearance Tuesday on behalf of New Jersey Republican Senate nominee Steve Lonegan, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the government’s implementation of the national health care reform law constituted “a criminal act.”
“If this health care law is forced upon this country, the young men and women in this audience are the ones who are really going to pay the price,” Perry said to a small crowd outside the Bendix Diner in this New York City suburb. “And that, I will suggest to you, reaches to the point of being a felony toward them and their future. That is a criminal act, from my perspective, to put that type of burden on them, to mortgage their future like that. America cannot stand that. America cannot accept that.” [Source]
What Rick Perry fails to say is by not accepting the Medicaid expansion portion of Medicare, just as he has effected the execution of more people for capital punishment than any other governor, he is sentencing many of his own citizens, Texans to death. He is condemning them to death by the unnecessary denial of available healthcare.
Instead of visiting California to attempt to attract businesses to move to low tax/”poor service to citizens” Texas, he should learn how states that decide to work proactively with Obamacare are actually helping their citizens. Instead of running around the country spewing hate he should be at home doing his job, ensuring Texans have healthcare.
Suffice it to say that neither Texans nor the rest of America is listening to Rick Perry. The health exchanges opened on October 1st, 2013 with such popularity that the system bogged down. That did not discourage folks. Many said they will continue trying until they are successful in getting an affordable healthcare plan that fits their needs at http://healthcare.gov.