Perry rejects ’Obamacare,’ but TX agency pushes on

Gov. Rick Perry has made no secret of his disdain for federal health reform or for one of its key tenets, a Travelocity-like state insurance marketplace in which consumers could choose from public and private health plans. The threat of Mr. Perry's veto pen even derailed legislation by one of his fellow Republican "anti-Obamacare" colleagues, who fears that if state lawmakers do not implement a health insurance exchange of their own, the federal government will do it for them — in his view, an even worse fate. But among Mr. Perry's gubernatorial peers, his stance on the health insurance exchange appears to be losing popularity: Politico reported last week that the Republican governors Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin are taking steps to comply with that piece of the law — even as they continue to oppose the federal healthcare program over all.