I like this guy Bobby Jindal.
LOUISIANA – 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governors, including both Jindal and McDonnell, have put off setting up the exchanges in the hope that the law would be repealed or struck down by the court.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.
He’s VP material.
Unlike Barack Obama, Bobby Jindal really has a compelling personal story.
@ Speranza:
He actually likes this country.
@ Rodan:
He also seems like a nice guy.
GMTA gentlemen. I was just thinking — Mr. Romney, meet your VP.
Bobby Jindal is great. So much energy. I’ll bet he’d be a tough act to follow after a couple cups of coffee, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I would hope that if he was the VP pick, he would have more responsibilites than funerals and squirt gun fights.
Bobby Jindal is a Catholic creationist exorcist!!! ZOMG1eleventy!
/Chuck
Bobby Jindal would make a great VP.
Replace Tweedle Dumb & Tweedle Dumber with Romney/Jindal, replace some of the boobs on the Supreme Court (and other courts) with people who actually understand & respect the Constitution, can all those stupid czars, get a Cabinet with men & women who are qualified, boot the RINO’s & the Dems and replace them with people whose IQ contains more than 2 digits and we might have a prayer.
Chief Executive mag offers some perspective on Jindal: in 2010, Louisiana was #41 on Best States To Do Business In. My girlfriend during the 2000s moved to Louisiana, came back and described it as “a welfare state”. She saw all the bums laying around and hated the place.
Last year, #27; this year, #14.
I have to admit: I didn’t like Jindal one bit, mainly based on what I’d heard from him and right up to that infamous SOTU response in 2009. But actions speak louder than words, and by his actions Jindal has completely rebuilt this place.
@ Zimriel:
For decades Louisiana has been one of the most corrupt states in the union. Ray “Chocolate City” Nagrin is not a republican.
Rodan wrote:
Jindal loves his country unlike obama.
@ Zimriel:
Where excatly did she go? Louisiana is not a welfare state. Sure Louisiana has been dubbed a very corrupt state. But the times are a changing. Things have been getting cleaned up.
I love my state. Some people just don’t get Louisiana.