Healthcare Access and Cost

The problem

In Texas, Medicaid largely covers four groups: children, seniors in nursing homes, pregnant women (up to a year after their pregnancy), and people with significant disabilities.

In the absence of Medicaid expansion, other adults in Texas typically only qualify for Medicaid insurance if they are parents and have extraordinarily low incomes — less than about $4,000 per year!

In other words, Medicaid expansion would offer a health insurance option to US citizen adults in a family of four making between $4,000 and $44,000 per year. A single adult would qualify with an income below about $22,000 per year. Expansion would provide a particular lifeline to adults who are in the health insurance “coverage gap”, meaning their income level is too low for them to qualify for ACA subsidies — such as adults in a family of four making between $4,000 and $32,000 per year. Right now, children under 19 in those families qualify for Medicaid; without Medicaid expansion, their parents don’t.

Texas currently has the highest uninsured rate in the nation, in large part because the state has not implemented Medicaid expansion.

Addressing rising costs and, specifically, dementia research and prevention.

The solution

Medicaid expansion would offer a health insurance option to US citizen adults in a family of four making between $4,000 and $44,000 per year. A single adult would qualify with an income below about $22,000 per year

Nearly a third (~29%) of Texas' 254 counties have no hospital.
- That's more than 70 counties without a hospital
- Over the past 20 years, an average of 1 hospital per year is closed in the state of Texas

Almost half (47%) of Texas' counties have no OB/GYN or maternity care.