The upcoming session of the Texas Legislature must take action to reduce the number of uninsured people in the state.
Barely 25 million Americans were uninsured in 2023, up from 27.6 million in 2022 and 33.2 million in 2019, according to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Unfortunately, an estimated 5 million Texans, or 16.6%, are uninsured, a percentage that more than doubles the national average of 7.6% in 2023. That ranks Texas last death among the states by a wide margin.
Young people in Texas find themselves in a similarly depressing situation. Although the percentage of uninsured children in the country fell from 5.1% in 2019 to 3.9% last year, 10.9% of Texas children are uninsured, although almost half of them are eligible for Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage.
These gaps exist for self-inflicted and shortsighted reasons. Texas Republican Party leadership in Austin opposed expanding Medicaid coverage and maintained strict eligibility rules that have thrown many into the abyss of coverage.
The Affordable Care Act dramatically reduced the number of uninsured Americans by providing affordable coverage options through the Health Insurance Marketplace. It also expanded subsidies to states that expand Medicaid coverage to more low-income adults. If not for a sharp increase in ACA enrollment in Texas and emergency pandemic relief policies that kept people on Medicaid longer without reviewEven more Texans would be left uninsured, according to Every Texana nonprofit political group.
He Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University has estimated that Texas has They gave up $5.4 billion a year into subsidies and left millions of low-income residents and children in a coverage gap. Business groups have pointed to the state’s dismal health care record as a weak link in the Texas economy.
For example, nearly 2.7 million of the 5 million uninsured people in Texas are low-wage workers who do not receive insurance through their employers, earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, or do not earn enough to afford health insurance. full price. Texas 2036, another public policy think tank and Medicaid expansion advocate, estimates that expansion would reduce the number of uninsured Texans by about 15%. That would still leave many Texans uninsured, but at least move the state in the right direction.
Most states, including several conservatives who had opposed accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid, now embrace Medicaid expansion and are reaping the benefits of reducing uninsured health care costs, creating new jobs and improve health outcomes for low-income residents. There is no good reason for Texas not to do the same.
The ranks of the uninsured will continue to skyrocket until the Texas Legislature ends its intransigence. The Legislature can and should do better.
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