Any Texas legislative session that doesn’t expand Medicaid is a failure.
Any session adjourned while Texas is still the national poster child for the uninsured is an act of political misconduct and humanitarian neglect.
Any facsimiles or mentions of “Lone Star” by Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt uninsured crisis in Texas.
Lawmakers clearly want to ignore the fact that Texas has the highest number at 5.4 million and the highest percentage of uninsured residents in the state at 18.4. They also don’t want to think about why the Medicaid eligibility rules are so strict in Texas.
To qualify for Medicaid, an adult in a four-person household would need to earn less than $4,000, which is less than 13 percent of federal policy levels.
There are constant reminders of the legal lack of concern for these Texans.
The final reminder is the end of this week of nearly three years of Medicaid pandemic coverage.
In March 2020, Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Act to keep people enrolled in Medicaid programs until the end of the public health emergency. That’s why Texas hasn’t removed anyone from Medicaid in the past three years.
But while the public health emergency expires in May, continuous Medicaid coverage expires Friday.
States then have 12 months to determine who else qualifies for Medicaid.
This means state health officials must evaluate the eligibility of the nearly 6 million Texans on Medicaid, about 2.7 million of whom are now at risk of losing their health insurance.
The state encourages people on Medicaid to ensure their information on YourTexasBenefits.com is current and to respond to state renewal notices.
This looming crisis wouldn’t be so bad if Texas expanded Medicaid, but lawmakers have vetoed it since 2013. They even turned them down while other red states — Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Utah, Louisiana, and Kentucky — found a way to move forward. North Carolina just expanded Medicaid.
There has never been a sound economic or moral argument to oppose expanding Medicaid to cover people living below 138 percent of the poverty line, or nearly $19,000 annually for one person by 2022. The federal government funds 90 percent of the program.
Ten years later, Texas is now one of 10 states in the country opposing the expansion of Medicaid, despite repeated sweetener offerings from the federal government. In 2021, President Joe Biden’s American Relief Plan offered those states stimulus that would have covered more than each state’s 10 percent share. Abbott, Patrick and company sniffed.
No argument offered to them, including the apparent financial reality that Texas shuns money that would alleviate the health concerns and suffering of the people they represent, matters. All the studies showing that Medicaid expansion is good for the health of Texans and the Texan economy fail to break their resistance to facts.
A 2021 Episcopal Health Foundation poll found that nearly 7 in 10 Texans (69 percent) support expanding Medicaid.
By denying what Texans so clearly want, Republican leaders are also denying Texas the $5.4 billion in federal dollars that the Medicaid expansion would bring in. And not even one of them could point to the damage being done to states that have expanded Medicaid and accepted the billions of dollars to do so.
How often are government leaders confronted with a serious life-or-death problem for which there is a proven solution, and yet they continue to reject the solution and allow the problem to grow more serious?
Abbott, Patrick and their lawmakers have the power to improve the lives and health of their Texans. To even save lives – and they don’t have to pay for it.
But it is a power they will not exercise. Medicaid expansion never stood a chance in this session, which is one reason this session is already a failure.
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