Rick Perry: Texas won’t implement key parts of Obama’s health care law

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Monday his state will not comply with two key provisions of President Barack Obama's health care law — the expansion of Medicaid or a state-run health insurance exchange.

Perry's office sent a letter to US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asserting his opposition to the two major tenets.

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Texas joins Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina in flouting the Medicaid provision of the health care reform law, USA Today reported.

"I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obamacare power grab," Perry said in a statement published by the Texas Tribune. "Neither a 'state' exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better 'patient protection' or in more 'affordable care.' They would only make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care."

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The US Supreme Court upheld most of the Affordable Care Act in a landmark ruling last week.

But justices voted 7-2 to strike down the part of the law that would have forced states to accept a major expansion of Medicaid. As the law was written, states that refused to do so would lose all future Medicaid funding, according to USA Today.

If states opt not to set up a health insurance exchange, then the federal government will do so for them.

The announcement leaves Texas with the highest percentage of people without health insurance in the country at nearly 25 percent, according to Reuters.