A review of records has found that Republican governors Scott Walker (WI), Bobby Jindal (LA), Rick Perry (TX), and Chris Christie (NJ) took $400 million in federal health care money for their states while opposing the Affordable Care Act.
Governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, all staunch opponents of President Barack Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act, have collectively applied for and won at least $352 million through grant programs set up by the law, federal records show.
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The action is at odds with the public stance of all four potential candidates, who have blasted the law as an unprecedented expansion of government and called for its repeal.
These governors are each trying to run for president based on in part publicly opposing the Affordable Care Act, but privately they are hypocritically gobbling up millions of federal dollars to fund the law that they have sworn to destroy. The behavior of the governors illustrates that Obamacare has become a buzzword for rallying Republican voters, but the reality is that repealing the ACA would cause absolute chaos at multiple levels of government.
Walker, Perry, Jindal, and Christie all claim that they hate the healthcare law, but that hatred hasn’t stopped them from putting their hands out and taking hundreds of millions of federal dollars. The key is that the governors were not forced to take the money. They had to apply for the funds. It wasn’t a mistake that they took the loot. Walker and the others intentionally asked for it.
The last two Republican presidential primary contests have quickly devolved into who hissy fights over who is the most conservative candidate. It is going to be difficult for the Obamacare hypocrite governors to wear the crown of real conservative while they were mooching hundreds of millions of dollars in Obamacare cash.
Republicans hate Obamacare, but not as much as they love free money.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
