The challenge, in a nutshell.
It’s constitutional – deal with it
In rural Borden County, 12 people signed up for Obamacare this year.
Livid over the government telling them they must buy something and loath to take anything that looks like a “handout,” the uninsured here are likely to stay that way. As Obamacare’s third open enrollment season began Sunday, this rock-solid conservative community of about 650 people offers a window into the challenges health law advocates face to expand coverage around the country.
“Health care is fine, if you can afford it,” said Brenda Copeland, a middle-aged woman who works at the Coyote Country Store and café, along with her two grown daughters, all of whom are uninsured. Copeland has had health insurance only once in her life, and opted to pay Obamacare’s tax penalty earlier this year rather than buy a plan.
“I hope Obamacare goes down the toilet,” she added.
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Outreach workers who are supposed to educate people here and in other parts of west Texas must travel huge distances to find small pockets of the uninsured — people like Copeland and her daughters, Becky Justice and Rika Law, both married women with children. And all of them think the Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable.
Copeland said her income fluctuates but she made about $19,000 last year; she didn’t know that she would have qualified for significant subsidies to lower her monthly insurance premiums, as well as for lowered co-pays and out-of-pocket costs. A plan for the coming year in the mid-priced, most popular tier would cost about $200 a month, after subsidies are figured in.
When she did learn about the subsidies, she softened her stance slightly and said she might look into it. But she said she’s done just fine without health insurance most of her life and is still angry that the federal government can mandate she has to buy it.
“At this point, I don’t mind them penalizing me,” she said.
Law, her daughter, did take a look at the federal enrollment website HealthCare.gov, but said the plans cost too much for her family of four. She too was unaware that she might qualify for tax credits to lower her premiums.
Her family previously had job-based coverage that cost about $1,000 a month — her husband works in the oil fields, but when oil prices dropped, his hours were cut and the Laws decided they didn’t have the money to cover premiums. The plans she looked at on HealthCare.gov cost even more, about $1,350 a month.
“I understand the benefit of having it,” she says of health insurance. “When you’re trying to juggle everyday bills, that’s when it becomes a problem.”
Her sister Becky Justice, who owns this one-room store on the only road through town, said she had health insurance until mid-2014. She doesn’t agree with Obamacare and, unlike her sister, never even window-shopped for plans. If she needs to see a doctor, she says she’ll go to a community health clinic outside the county and figure out how to pay the bill.
On the one hand, it’s hard to feel sympathy for people who refuse to help themselves. On the other hand, when people’s heads get filled with poison for a long time, it’s hard to overcome that. Keep this in mind when you hear poison producers like the shills at the TPPF talk about the “failure” of Obamacare to cover as many people as it should, as if they had nothing to do with it.
But challenge or no, the work proceeds, and as we go forward I do expect the uninsured rate in Texas to continue to decline. Of course, what could make it take a huge step down remains off the table, at least for now.
The uninsured rate in Texas is 19 percent. There are multiple reasons: the number of low-wage jobs in Texas that don’t offer benefits, cultural and language barriers, and political opposition to health reform. Another reason is that Republican leaders have not expanded Medicaid to more poor people, as 30 other states have done. That part of the law is optional, but by declining the expansion, Texas loses out on billions of dollars in federal funds every year.
There is growing pressure for Texas to expand Medicaid, and supporters are now looking for the right political message that could bring the parties together.
For the moment, Republicans still consider the Affordable Care Act to be political kryptonite. Senator Ted Cruz continues to criticize it. Attorney General Ken Paxton just filed another lawsuit attacking part of it. Governor Greg Abbott has said he won’t consider the Medicaid expansion, because he considers Medicaid a dysfunctional entitlement program that should not be allowed to expand.
In Houston, local leaders want the expansion. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, a moderate Republican, has supported it for years. The CEO of the taxpayer-supported Harris Health System, George Masi, says he needs the revenue that Medicaid expansion would bring. He’s had to lay off more than 100 employees, and cut back on charity care.
“What is even more profound is that money is going to other states that expanded Medicaid, like New York, California, Connecticut,” Masi said. “And so the taxpayer of Texas is being penalized, if you will, for not taking advantage of that option.”
By emphasizing the impact on taxpayers, Masi and others are framing the issue in terms of economics rather than humanitarian concerns.
“We call it a paradigm shift,” Masi added. “It’s a different way of thinking.”
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In 2013, the Texas legislature took no action on Medicaid expansion. The same thing happened this year.
But more voices are starting to push for change, according to Ken Janda, who runs Community Health Choice, a not-for-profit insurance company in Houston.
Janda said the Texas Medical Association and the Texas Hospital Association are both being more vocal on the issue, as is the Texas Association of Business. The federal Medicaid funds would help the state budget, and inject revenue into the medical sector of the economy.
“Doctors’ offices are able to hire more people. Pharmacies are able to hire more people. That becomes an economic multiplier,” Janda said.
County budgets would benefit as well, because they support safety-net clinics and public hospitals such as Ben Taub, part of the Harris Health system.
“If Texas expanded Medicaid, we would be able to look at reducing local property taxes across the board in all counties, or use those dollars for something besides healthcare,” said Janda.
Janda says the new emphasis on economics could eventually bring the parties together.
“There is some interest now by some Republican state senators because of the potential to reduce local property taxes,” he added.
Janda isn’t naming names yet. He also says don’t expect to see any movement on this issue until after the 2016 presidential election. But he says he is “guardedly optimistic” that Republicans will be willing to discuss a possible Medicaid expansion after that.
Color me very skeptical of that. The Senate has gotten worse, from a problem-solving, get-things-done perspective, in the past couple of elections, and I’m hard-pressed to think of any Republican Senators that will be in the Lege in 2017 that I can imagine having interest in Medicaid expansion. I’d be delighted to be wrong about this, but I sure wouldn’t bet on it. I’ve said this about multiple issues, from things like equality to immigration and Medicaid expansion – things won’t change until someone loses an election over it. I’m sure Ken Janda knows that the Texas Medical Association and the Texas Hospital Association both endorsed Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick in 2014. I know why they did, and I know why the Texas Association of Business did as well, but this is as clear an example of the canonical definition of insanity you’ll ever see. Nothing will change until someone loses an election over this sort of thing. In the meantime, other states will continue to receive the money that we’re turning away in the name of ideology.