Texas, where 25% are uninsured, opts out of Medicaid expansion (Atlantic)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry sent a letter to Health and Human Services saying his state will not expand Medicaid. As the state with the highest rate of uninsured people in the country (25%), 1.4 million uninsured who would have qualified for Medicaid won’t. The expansion would have cut the number of uninsured by 50% by 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. “… I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government,” Perry said in his letter. In 2010, Perry floated the idea of opting out of Medicaid to make up the budget deficit, but changed his mind after a study indicated that stripping 2.6 million state residents of health care coverage and $15 billion in federal funds would be devastating.