Key Texas Lawmakers Show Little Appetite for Medicaid Expansion
The chairman of the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee and other high-ranking Republicans on Tuesday expressed little interest in expanding publicly funded insurance coverage to low-income Texans, suggesting the issue is unlikely to gain traction when the state Legislature convenes in January.
State Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, the committee’s chairman, said at a public hearing that expanding Medicaid coverage would do little to help the finances of hospitals that treat uninsured patients. He also criticized expansion supporters for the “false tactic or verbiage that’s utilized frequently that expanding Medicaid’s going to solve everything.”
His comments suggest that advocates for the uninsured face difficult odds of persuading the Republican-led Legislature to offer health insurance to roughly 800,000 eligible Texans, using mostly federal funding under President Obama's signature Affordable Care Act.
Schwertner, joined by Republican state Sens. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, and Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, expressed skepticism about the fiscal wisdom of an enlarged Medicaid program. They cited a new study commissioned by the state that found hospitals’ “uncompensated care” costs were significantly larger than the amount of funding those hospitals would net under a coverage expansion. Texas Republicans have criticized Medicaid, a program jointly run by the federal government and the state, as inefficient.
Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/09/13/key-texas-lawmakers-show-little-appetite-medicaid-/
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