One of the reasons we started "A New Healthy Texas" was to help separate healthcare policy truth from myth. Two of the most pernicious and false myths in Texas today are that Medicaid is irredeemably broken and that it is a terrible burden on everyone involved.
Medicaid in Texas is not perfect,...
Dallas-based reporter Wade Goodwin tells the clear, compelling and heart-breaking story of Texas politicians blocking billions of dollars in healthcare and economic development. Goodwin's story uses Dallas' Parkland Hospital as an example of the kind of damage County Hospitals are suffering, and it mirrors experiences in Houston where hardworking...
Our colleagues at Episcopal Health Foundation and Rice University's Baker Institute have collaborated to produce an important issue brief on the insurance status of adults in Texas. Click here on the "Health Reform Monitoring Survey - Texas" to learn more about the characteristics of the uninsured in Texas as...
As Texans, we know that having 25% of our residents not having health insurance is bad for them and for the Texas economy, yet for the past few years we have become stuck in politics over policy.
The legislature has known for years that 6 million uninsured Texans is bad,...
Whatever happened to health care?
Six months ago, as the first open enrollment period for the health insurance marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act ended, pundits on every corner said the No. 1 issue in the November 2014 elections would be health care. Politicians took to the airwaves, proclaiming...
About 12 years ago, I began to see uninsured people -- people without health insurance. Like the little boy in the movie "The Sixth Sense," I soon realized I saw something invisible to most Texans. I'd worked in the insurance industry for decades, yet the uninsured population, and how...
The “woodwork” or “welcome mat” effect has been talked about extensively in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) debate. It refers to the millions of previously unenrolled Medicaid-eligible individuals who are expected to sign up for Medicaid due to the publicity surrounding the implementation of the ACA.
The assumption is that...