State Rep. John Zerwas demonstrates that being a physician doesn’t make you qualified to talk about health care reform. His article is as embarrassingly idea-free as his national colleagues’ plan was. After the usual paean to tort “reform” and invective about government employees getting between you and your doctor – that’s what insurance companies are for! – he tells us that the rest of the country should be just like us:
There will always be those for whom the government will need to play a role. As the chair of the subcommittee on Health and Human Services of the Appropriations Committee during the 81st session, I can certainly attest to this fact. I joint-authored legislation that would have expanded the CHIP program, because there was not a reasonable market solution to this population — children born into families at 300% or less of the federal poverty level ($66,000/year for a family of four). In addition, I sponsored legislation called the Healthy Texans program intended to encourage competitive health plans for working individuals and small businesses at lower incomes.
Texas enjoys a legacy of stepping up to the plate when the needs of its citizens arise. But we have done so by encouraging the growth of business and making Texas a great state in which to raise families. The federal government should respect the sovereignty of the state in this regard. And just as all politics is local, the delivery of accessible, safe, quality healthcare is local. Let Texans Take Care of Texans!
I’m guessing Zerwas refers to SB841 for the CHIP expansion bill. That died during the chubfest, then was temporarily resuscitated by Sen. Kip Averitt, but ultimately died because – oops! – Governor Perry hates CHIP. For some odd reason, Zerwas did not see fit to mention that.
He also didn’t see fit to mention that Texas has an awful lot of uninsured people. Rep. Garnet Coleman, who has a much clearer grasp of this issue, brings that up.
Brick by brick, the state’s healthcare system has been dismantled over the years. Starting with 2003’s rollback under Speaker Craddick, Medically Needy Medicaid —which prevented medical bankruptcies — was eliminated, then the rolls of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) were slashed, and damaging privatization schemes were embarked upon. It continued this session as the Republican leadership killed a bill despite overwhelming approval in both chambers that would have allowed working parents to purchase CHIP coverage for their children.
If the “states’ rights” leadership in Texas refuses to do anything for our state, then it’s up to Congress to enact reform that will benefit all Americans, especially Texans. The best plan for health insurance reform is one that affordably covers most uninsured Texans, preserves the insurance of those already covered and lowers health care costs.
Texas’ current system has left six million Texans without health insurance. Those who can afford coverage fight every day against skyrocketing premiums, declining benefits, medical bankruptcies, preexisting conditions, and the constant threat of being kicked off their own insurance plan. Because of our dismal health standings, we have the most to gain from federal health insurance reform under consideration.
Lowering costs and maintaining affordability is essential to achieving successful reform. In 2008, an alarming 6.9 million Texans spent more than 20 percent of their income on health related costs. Due to skyrocketing insurance rates, workers are no longer rewarded with a pay raise — they have to settle for keeping their insurance.
Coleman is also referring to SB841, but unlike Zerwas he recognizes it as a failure and not a success, because it didn’t get to the Governor’s desk and would have been vetoed if it had. I’ll give Zerwas credit for trying, but he is at best hopelessly naive about what the true obstacles are to achieving that goal.
Oh, and did you see that bit about the six million Texans without health insurance? That’s 25% of the state population. If you go back to that Ezra Klein post, the CBO estimate for the US is 17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won’t have health-care insurance in 2010. If we remove those over 65 (10.2% of the population, or about 2.4 million) and the undocumented immigrants (estimated to be 1.4 million in fiscal year 2005), those six million uninsured represent about 30% of the relevant total. And even if you assume that 6 million figure includes all 1.4 million undocumented immigrants, and subtract them from each population, we’re still at 20% of legal residents, and 22% of legal, non-elderly residents. In other words, Texas fares way worse on this metric than the country as a whole. There’s a reason the rest of the country isn’t interested in doing as we do.
It’s certainly not going to get easier to afford without gov’t help. http://www.newsy.com/videos/drugmakers_raise_prices_ahead_of_health_care_reform
As you point out, while the CHIPS program is laudable, it ignores millions of adults who can’t afford health care because it is too expensive. These people are unemployed (millions of them are unemployed and simply can’t find jobs in this economy), they are under-employed (part-time workers, temps, students, etc. who are trying to just make enough to keep their house, pay their debts, etc.) or work in jobs that simply don’t provide health insurance (and that includes millions of people who start their own business).
Republicans continue to ignore these people because their ideology prevents them from devising real-world programs to help. Instead, they talk in theoretical terms about “lower taxes” or “tort reform” which they claim will eventually create jobs and supply everyone who wants health care, the care they desire.
Sorry but we have been playing that game for decades now and it has not been working! Texas has low taxes and has enacted tort reform and we still have the highest rate of uninsured in the country. And over the decades that we have been following this basically “market based,” laissez faire strategy in this state and across this country, we have seen the number of uninsured rise, premiums soar and the profits of health insurance companies skyrocket.
The theoretical approach has failed; it is time for direct action by the government to fix this problem and provide a basic level of service to people where the market has failed; just as the government provides police protection, the fire service, public schools, etc.
Well the “health care reform” we are probably going to end up with isn’t going to help the 25% of Texans who cannot afford health insurance. Those who cannot qualify for Medicaid will simply have to hope they can come up with the 2.5% additional income tax to avoid going to prison and take their chances with the public health care system and mainly take their chances that they don’t lose everything including their homes simply because of illness.
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