President Barack Obama visited Dallas this week, calling on Gov. Rick Perry to expand Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act. He emphasized that other states that chose to expand Medicaid have seen their rates of the uninsured decrease, such as Arkansas, where it dropped by 14 percent. Texas would have had to spend $15 billion to expand Medicaid over the next 10 years — spending that would've assured up to $100 billion in federal funds. Instead, the state Legislature approved a measure prohibiting the Health and Human Services Commission from even considering Medicaid expansion without its approval. The governor called the president's visit "a desperate attempt to salvage his ill-conceived and unpopular program from a Titanic fate."