Gov. Jindal: We Need to End Obama's 'Culture of Dependence'

By Greg McDonald

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says he has no intention of expanding the Medicaid program in his state and will work with other Republicans “to do everything we can to repeal Obamacare.”

“I think this is a huge mistake for the country, certainly for the state of Louisiana,” Jindal said Monday night on Fox News’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” “We need to do everything we can to repeal Obamacare.”

Jindal, often mentioned as a possible running mate for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, said President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan is “not affordable” and “not sustainable” because it will end up increasing taxes and forcing the United States to borrow even more money to meet its debt obligations.

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“I think the real cost of the exchanges will be higher healthcare costs, lower quality healthcare, more government intrusion in micromanaging healthcare,” he said. “That’s why we need to elect Mitt Romney, repeal Obamacare, and end this culture of dependence.”

Jindal questioned why, “in the middle of the greatest recession since the Great Depression, the president is creating yet another entitlement program.”

“What we are saying is a government-run program, and a new government entitlement program — when we can't afford the ones we've got — makes absolutely no sense at a time when we’ve got over $15 trillion of debt,” Jindal said.

Jindal is one of many Republican governors who are apparently heeding a call from GOP leaders on Capitol Hill to reject as many of the Obamacare programs as possible, despite the Supreme Court ruling last Thursday upholding the healthcare law as constitutional.

Romney and Republicans seem determined to make it a major campaign issue even though recent polls show most Americans don’t consider healthcare a top issue or problem facing the nation.

But Jindal insisted the issue is one of economics, saying health officials in Louisiana estimate that it will cost state taxpayers at least $3 billion to implement the Medicaid program expansion over 10 years.

“The reality is, it doesn’t bend the cost curve down, as the president promised he was going to do,” Jindal said. “It doesn’t put patients and their doctors in control.

“Why in world do we think it makes sense to have the government come in and take over almost a sixth of the economy?”