President Barack Obama is stopping in Dallas today, and while there will do what he can to convince Gov. Rick Perry to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Perry's office said no official meeting or phone call has been scheduled and that the president will be using podiums and teleprompters to convince the governor.
"According to what the White House is saying, he is going to try to make the case to try to convince Texas leadership to embrace Obamacare and expand Medicaid," said Josh Havens with the governor's office.
But Havens said that won't happen, and that it would be irresponsible to expand a program like Medicaid.
"Simply adding more people and throwing more tax dollars at the system -- the Medicaid system -- isn’t going to do anything to improve access to healthcare," Havens said.
Instead of taking about $100 billion being offered by the federal government to expand Medicaid for a 1.4 million population of Texans known as the working poor, Perry is hoping to negotiate a federal block grant so Texas can reform Medicaid with things like copays and cancelation fees.
Perry is expected to release a statement immediately following the president’s speech in Dallas.
