The state’s top lawmakers said they have no plans of expanding medicaid next legislative session, despite new data showing Texas has the largest number of uninsured people in the nation.
According to new census estimates released Tuesday, the state is home to roughly 4.6 million uninsured residents.
“We not have not just the worst percentage,” Anne Dunkelberg, Associate Director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities said, “but also the biggest number of uninsured in the country.”
Texas is one of 19 states that refused medicaid expansion, which according to Dunkelberg would be an easy fix to the growing problem.
“There is something like 45 state jobs you can have, if you are supporting two people on that salary or three people on that salary, your family would be in poverty,” Dunkelberg said.
Dunkelberg testified in front of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee this week, telling lawmakers that more and more Texans fall under “poverty” status each year.
“You don’t have to be a slacker to be a family with children in poverty,” Dunkelberg said. “If you are at an entry level job it’s very easy to do that. So young families are very much at risk.”
She told the committee that medicaid expansion would give health coverage to 1 million uninsured Texans. However, many of the committee members shrugged off the idea.
“Texas made the right call as hard as it was,” State Senator Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, said. “It’s not an easy decision, but the need is real but the dollars just not there to make it make sense in it’s current state.”
Perry defended the state’s decision to forgo medicaid expansion. He said the system is broken and is costing states more dollars than they can afford.