In Texas It Won’t be PerryCare

Rick Perry has officially notified Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius today that he will not be setting up a healthcare exchange system for Texans. In short, we will not, in Texas, have a Republican version of Obamacare in Texas, ObanacareLite, or as I have come to call it, PerryCare.

 

PerryCare promised to be a Republican shell that would do nothing for the state’s 25 million uninsured citizens. PerryCare would have been a joke of a healthcare exchange system.

But apparently Rick Perry is FED UP. Fed up with federal intervention into state matters. Fed up with Obama. Fed up with intrusions into what is a local matter.

So he is just saying NO to Obamacare, er, PerryCare.

So now, in Texas, we get to have full blown federal Obamacare, because one of the stipulations of the Affordable Healthcare Act, probably put in there by Republicans, is that states get to opt to construct their own local version of Obamacare. Another stipulation is that the state partners with the federal government to set up their exchanges. And another option is to let the federal government set up the exchanges with no state participation.

That, obviously is what Rick Perry is going to opt for. No state control, total federal control of federal healthcare in Texas.

I find that amazingly ironic, that this governor who has championed states’ rights and the Tenth Amendment is opting for total federal control of the healthcare system that will be set up in his state.

As one who makes his home in Texas, I could not be more pleased with this turn of events because I want no state officials meddling in my federal healthcare program.