Texas Governor Rick Perry said on Monday his state will not implement an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor or create a health insurance exchange, leaving the state with the highest percentage of people without health insurance outside President Barack Obama’s signature law.
But when pressed by Fox News anchor Jenna Lee, Perry couldn’t come up with a good way to cover those who don’t have insurance in the state. Instead, Perry danced around the question and argued that the government had misrepresented the quality of care in Texas in a recent report that ranked the state last. He went on to say that the Medicaid expansion isn’t about getting coverage for the people who need it — it’s about freedom:
LEE: So let’s talk about solutions then. According to a new federal government report, I know you’ve seen this, Texas has ranked last when it comes to health services provided by the state. I know your folks have come out and aggressively said, ‘Hey, this is not something that we necessarily agree with for obvious reasons.’ But the facts are one out of four Texans is without health insurance, one out of four Texans is on Medicare or Medicaid. The health crisis, the big cris for the country and for your state, what is the solution?
PERRY: Well, let me address this issue. You don’t have people come from all over the globe to the state of Texas for their health care. We’ve got some of the finest health care in the world whether it’s MD Anderson or UT Southwest, some incredible health care facilities in the country. So the idea that this federal government which doesn’t like Texas to begin with to pick and choose and come up with some data and say somehow Texas has the worst health care system in the world is just fake and false on its face. The real issue here is aboutfreedom.
Watch it in the video above.
