WASHINGTON (The New York Times News Service) -- Read Rick Perry's lips: No Medicaid expansion in Texas.

Despite hecklers who interrupted his speech four times, the Texas governor didn't mince words at Friday morning's Texas State Society breakfast on Capitol Hill.

"Let me go on the record here for a moment: We're not going to be expanding Medicaid in Texas," Perry said as the room exploded in applause.

The 45-minute event at the Republican Party's Capitol Hill Club was disrupted by an organized team of pesky protesters who heckled the longest-serving governor in Texas history about his refusal to expand Medicaid and the state's highest-in-the-nation percentage of uninsured residents.

The protesters were led from the meeting room after expressing their frustrations with Perry's health-care policies. Their cries for expansion of Medicaid echoed through the halls of the building that is often used for GOP fund-raising purposes as they were ushered outside into the cold.

Outside, the ejected demonstrators were cheered by a group of noisy protesters who chanted anti-Perry slogans for nearly an hour. They carried signs including one that declared, "Rick, Rick, you makes us sick," "You'll Never be POTUS" and "Expand Medicaid."

Perry, who strongly opposed President Obama's Affordable Care Act while campaigning for president in 2012, made his intentions clear, calling Medicaid "a broken system. It's moving our state, and I'll just speak to our state, towards bankruptcy if we expand the current program."

States can opt to expand Medicaid and receive funds from the federal government, a move that would cover roughly one million more Texans. At almost 25 percent, Texas has the highest rates of uninsured in 2011, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Republican governors in opposition to the measure reason it will eat up funds and won't be able to be sustained for long.

But this week Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a longtime opponent of the measure, announced he would expand the program. He joined six other Republican governors in moving to expand Medicaid, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

Rev. James Caldwell of Houston gripped a megaphone and proclaimed to the group Perry was ignoring the plight of friends and family not on Medicaid.

"I'll follow Rick Perry anywhere he goes to get my message across," the 59-year-old told the Houston Chronicle.

Perry joked the protesters were from Alabama, referencing the new archrival for the Texas A&M Aggies football team.

I greatly respected those individuals from Alabama out here who are letting us know their feelings," he said, smiling. "But the fact is you don't have to come to the state of Texas. You can go somewhere else if that is what you want."

That prompted a rejoinder from one of the protesters who declared, "Actually, these people are from Houston, Texas." He chanted "health care is a human right" over and over before being escorted away.

"I'm pretty sure you're from Alabama," Perry retorted.  

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