No Brainer, Health

 

Texas is leaving a huge amount of federal money on the table and not insuring more than 1 million people because of its opposition to Obamacare.

The decision by Texas to reject expansion of Medicaid, the government health-coverage program for the poor, will prevent the state from receiving an estimated $100 billion in federal cash over a decade, at the same time its hospitals are eating $5.5 billion in annual costs for treating uninsured people.

Those uncompensated costs in turn are being covered by taxes and insurance premiums paid by the state's businesses and residents, who are also footing the bill for expanding Medicaid in 29 states.

The Medicaid expansion states, as a rule, have seen a marked decline in their uninsured rates and the amount of costs their hospitals incur in caring for people without insurance.

Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas still has $765 million in uncompensated care costs annually from treating the uninsured.

"A huge chunk" of Parkland's uncompensated care costs "could be paid for by about $580 million a year that would be brought in by the Medicaid expansion monies," said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who oversees the hospital.

    

Also galling to the business community is research showing that for every $1 the state paid toward Medicaid expansion, it would earn back $1.30 in new economic activity, which would include the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
"You look at the numbers, and you say, this is a no-brainer," said Ray Perryman, a leading Texas economist, in an interview with NPR.

Traditional Medicaid is jointly run by the federal government and individual states, and enrollees do not pay premiums for their health coverage. States have the power to set restrictions on who can receive coverage, whose costs are split, more or less evenly, with the federal government.

No health coverage for the poor will cost the States much more money than having coverage.   Just a thought.