From the Senator's Desk . . .
May 3, 2007
The time has come for Texas to provide universal health care. For too many Texans, affordable health care is out of reach. Today, more than 5.5 million Texans—including 1.4 million children—lack health insurance.
Written by Senator Eliot Shapleigh, www.shapleigh.org
Amparo Estrada was among the speakers at a rally for universal health care on the steps of the Texas state Capitol. (Photo By Jana Birchum/Austin Chronicle)
Let's Bring Universal Health Care to Texas
The time has come for Texas to provide universal health care.
For too many Texans, affordable health care is out of reach.
Texas is the uninsured capital of the United States. More than 5.5 million Texans—including 1.4 million children—lack health insurance, according to the Texas Medical Association.
Texas’ uninsurance rates, 1.5 to 1.7 times the national average, create significant problems in the financing and delivery of health care to all Texans. Those who lack insurance coverage typically enjoy far-worse health status than their insured counterparts.
As other states—including California and Massachusetts—craft tailored universal health care solutions to their own uninsured needs, Texas leaders continue to ignore the problem.
What does this mean to the average family?
Amparo Estrada, for example, is a married mother of two from East Austin. She works full time. Unfortunately, like 70% of uninsured Texans who are working people, Amparo and her husband make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to purchase private insurance.
With her diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and vascular disease, lack of health care has cost her gravely.
She lost both her legs to diabetes, suffered kidney failure, and is now in a wheelchair and on dialysis. She has also collected significant debt on her credit cards to pay for doctor visits and medications, leading to financial devastation.
Amparo's story is one of many compelling examples of the unnecessary health and financial costs of uninsurance to patients and tax payers alike.
That is why, in this legislative session, we filed the Texas Universal Health Care Act (S.B. 1911). S.B. 1911 creates the Texas Health Coverage Agency as the single payer to administer the Texas Health Coverage System. Public funding of health care to a vibrant, competitive private delivery system will improve health outcomes and direct money to heath care, not claims denial.
Recently, the consulting firm, McKinsey and Co., released a key report that dissects why Americans spend more for health insurance but get less.One major factor is that Americans spend $98 billion a year in excess administration costs: marketing, underwriting and denial management. The New England Journal of Medicine found in 2003 that current private-sector health care administrative costs are 31%, while Medicare's administrative costs are 3.6%.
Medical care is now a zero sum game where money is tied up in passing around the bill rather than putting money in direct care.
How many of us have health insurance, then get the bill from the hospital for what insurance won't pay?
Our plan will make quality health care available for all Texans.
A recent Gallup poll shows that 69% of the public believes that it is the responsibility of the government to make sure that all Americans have health care coverage, up from 59% in 2000.
When I go to my district, this is the number one issue middle-class families ask me about: "What am I going to do to maintain my health insurance?"
The real question is what we are going to do to ensure basic health care for all Texans.
Keep the Faith!
Eliot Shapleigh
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