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Experts Say Taxpayers Will Stay on Hook for the Uninsured Even if Texas Fights Medicaid Expansion

Posted byHoumanitarian

(Todd Ackerman, Houston Chronicle)
When his wife’s hand swelled up after an insect bite last month, disabled Houston resident Charles Alongi did the prudent thing: He took her to the nearest hospital emergency room.

In and out in record time, the Alongis were feeling good about the appointment until they got the bill for the five minutes the doctor spent with them, two pain killers and hand wrapping: $800. The bill is a fraction of the $17.3 billion Texas hospitals charge annually to treat the uninsured. Those bills, Health and Human Services Commissioner Thomas Suehs told a Texas House committee this month, are passed on to all Texans.

“We’re not debating whether somebody gets health care in this state, we’re debating how you pay for it,” Suehs said. “Either you are going to pay for it through the Medicaid program or private insurance through subsidies or you’re going to pay for it through local tax dollars.”

Gov. Rick Perry’s announcement this month that Texas won’t participate in the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion may have seemed to settle the issue, but instead it’s launched a debate about whether expanded Medicaid or the status quo is the least costly path.

With the expansion, Suehs said, Texas would receive $100 billion of Medicaid funding from the federal government over 10 years and would have to put up $15.5 billion in that time, most of it in the latter part of the decade.

That might seem like a good deal, but Suehs told legislators that he, like Perry, opposes participation in the expansion because Medicaid is “broken” and already consumes too much of the state budget – 25 percent. It pays for the care of one in four children, more than half of childbirths and half of nursing home costs.

Perry and Suehs call for the federal government to provide block grants that allow states to develop programs that fit their needs.

…But skeptics say Texas’ track record doesn’t inspire confidence. …
In the meantime, insured Texans are subsidizing the uninsured through higher premiums, what Family USA calls “the hidden health tax.”
(Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle)

RELATED STORIES:
Who Covers Health Care for Texas’ Uninsured? (KPRC 2 News)
Texas Counties Fear Residents Will Pay Price of Perry’s Rebuff (New York Times)

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