Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal refuses to implement Obamacare despite Supreme Court ruling


The Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's health care law on Thursday, but Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a possible Republican vice presidential contender who has refused to establish a federally mandated health care exchange in his state, said Friday that he will continue to ignore it.

"We're not going to start implementing Obamacare," Jindal said during a conference call with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. "We're committed to working to elect Gov. Romney to repeal Obamacare."

Under the Affordable Care Act, states must set up a health insurance exchange program by Jan. 1, 2014, and will receive grants from the federal government to implement it. Several Republican governors, including both Jindal and McDonnell, have put off setting up the exchanges in the hope that the law would be repealed or struck down by the court. Now that the law has been upheld, Jindal said he won't change course and is looking to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to lead the repeal effort if he takes office in 2013.

"Here in Louisiana we have not applied for the grants, we have not accepted many of these dollars, we're not implementing the exchanges," Jindal said. "We don't think it makes any sense to implement Obamacare in Louisiana. We're going to do what we can to fight it."

Despite the court ruling, there is still a chance that Republicans in Congress can repeal much of the law next year even if they don't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Because Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the mandate to purchase health insurance—one of the key provisions of the law—was a tax, Republicans can use a procedure called "budget reconciliation" to pass a repeal bill that requires only a simple majority to pass. But this scenario relies on the Republicans' ability to win the White House, keep the majority in the House and gain enough seats in the Senate.

On the same conference call on Friday, McDonnell, also considered a contender to become Romney's running mate, said he would "evaluate" his options in Virginia now that the court has upheld the law.

"We don't even know exactly what that federal exchange would look like, so there's still some uncertainty at this point as to what the right course is, and in the next days and weeks we're going to be evaluating the case as well as the options for Virginia," McDonnell said. "I think each state is going to have to weigh that and look at the time frame to determine what to do. But I agree absolutely that the priority right now is to elect a new president and a new Senate so this law can be repealed."

McDonnell, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, added that he has not yet polled fellow state executives in the GOP about how they plan to proceed after the ruling, but said that most are looking to the election in November for guidance.

we have not accepted many of these dollars

Jindal, Santorum, McDonnell, Rubio, etc, etc, etc, all Republicrat, big govt yesmen poluting Congress and the halls of justice! Of course Robme is a member of that boys club with his "go along to get along", "you have to embrace the lobbyists to get support of your message out" mentality.

They'll find a way to phuck us up as bad as any Demoncrap ever could given the chance!

Obozo, Robme, either way the American people are screwed!

Guess the question is, do we want 4 more years of one evil, or 8 of the other?

Many States have and accept Medicaid therefore Medicaid dollars, but many may not accept the expansion of Medicaid because it will sink there states in a debt well beyond the ability to fund the program. The program has become a huge albatros for the states to carry. The program remains a major reason for reduction of governmental staff in order to reduce debt, making it harder for the people of this state to get personal attention in official offices, etc. I believe Rick Scott deciding not to implement the program a wise decision for the future of the State of Florida and would personally stand behind his decision should that be the decision he makes. It definitely looks like many states may not accept the program.

I thought states could opt out.

I think if they do,they have to face certain Federal Penalties!
Implementing that new Tax will cost a LOT of Grief!

Only to those who actually pay taxes.

States who opt out of "medicaid expansion" cannot be taxed.......Taxed being key here...

I think we need to take a page from Switzerland. You know their people can vote to remove any law their government passes.

It is just a step on the inevitable road to single-payer.
We should just get on with instituting a US single-payer
plan and make it the most efficient and best health care
system in the world.

Could save trillions of dollars annually.

$2 trillion is about $6600 per person for everyone in the
United states per year. That is ~$26000 per year for a
family of four.

Taxed Enough Already!

I think single-payer, if administered correctly, has more advantages than disavantages, but the individual disavantages are monumental in scope...Underfunding, mismanagement, and recessions are inevitable if existing problems are not addressed first....We already have single-payer insurance with medicare, only difference being it's not universal because it only applies to those over 65....We can see how well that is NOT working...Canada, Denmark, and Sweden have single-payer insurance ...Two things jump out at me...Decreased quality of care and very high tax rates...Not sure Americans can afford single-payer....Not sure our currupt system(s) would allow it to work...JMO...

Yeah Governor Scott opts Florida out of the Obamacare and refuses to sink Florida into a debt the state cannot possibly handle......we already have a huge dept of health with doctors volunteering on there own time to treat patients of florida that cannot afford care.......don't really see where this state needs Obamacare when we already have an albatross on our backs with MA benefits