Rick Perry tells 25 percent of his constituents they can go to hell

Rick Perry writes another letter. The most recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that Texas has one of the highest uninsured populations of any state in the union. As of 2010, it was 25 percent. Yes, a quarter of Texans don't have health insurance, and aren't on Medicaid.

So what does that MENSA candidate of a governor they have there in Texas do? What else but reject Medicaid expansion AND setting up an insurance exchange to make insurance more available to Texans.

'If anyone was in doubt, we in Texas have no intention to implement so-called state exchanges or to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. I will not be party to socializing health care and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government,' Perry says in the letter.

Sigh. Medicaid expansion alone would cut the number of uninsured Texas in half, which includes reducing the number of uninsured adults by 74 percent. The exchange (which will be set up by the federal government whether Perry likes it or not) would bring in most of the rest.

But Rick Perry wants Texans to know that he's gonna be fighting for their freedom. Their freedom from the federal government trying to prevent them from dying before their time because they can't afford health insurance.