Rick Perry Makes Ridiculous Claim About Why Texas Leads the Nation in Number of Uninsured Citizens
"the truth is, almost nobody wants him to be president - especially after his disastrous 2012 campaign. It doesn’t matter that almost every poll I’ve seen of potential 2016 GOP candidates has Perry at or near the bottom, he’s still clearly getting ready for another run at the presidency. I can’t really blame the GOP for not getting behind him. Why would they? He was an absolute embarrassment in 2012 and I can almost guarantee 2016 isn’t going to be any better. For example, recently Perry made a completely asinine claim that the reason why Texas leads the nation in the number of its citizens without health insurance is because that’s what Texans want. “Texas has been criticized for having a large number of uninsured,” Perry said. “But that’s what Texans wanted. They did not want a large government program forcing everyone to purchase insurance.” No, actually what most Americans want is true universal health care – but Republicans damn sure won’t allow that to happen. Currently, Texas leads the nation with 22 percent of its citizens living without health insurance. In a state of around 27 million people, that means about 6 million aren’t insured. And this isn’t a number that magically grew after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. This has been a problem in Texas for years, so Perry trying to link this problem to the Affordable Care Act is just idiotic."
