Romney vs. Perry

Ezra Klein gives us one more example of decrepit state of the Republican party.

“Nearly 3 in 10 adults living in Texas (27.8%) do not have health insurance, making it the state with the highest uninsured rate in the country in 2010,” reports Gallup. Meanwhile, Massachusetts “continues to have the lowest percentage of uninsured residents, at 4.7%.”

Notably, both Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts responsible for the state’s health-care reforms, and Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas, are potential candidates for the GOP’s 2012 nomination. But the conventional wisdom is that Romney is likely to be unacceptable in a Republican primary because of his record on health-care reform, while Perry is not expected to face any particular problems related to health-care policy. So the governor responsible for the lowest uninsured rate is a heretic, while the governor responsible for the highest uninsured rate in the nation is a mainstream conservative. Telling, isn’t it?