Texas Task Force Recommends Additional Spending, Obtaining Federal Matching Funds To Improve Access For Uninsured

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 24 Apr 2006 - 16:00 PDT

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Texas should make a greater investment in health care through additional spending and by working to obtain additional federal matching funds, according to a report released this week by the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, the Houston Chronicle reports. The report, titled "Code Red: The Critical Condition of the Health of Texas," describes a range of recommendations meant to improve access to health care for the 25% of Texans who are uninsured. Developed by a 19-member task force of academic and business professionals and sponsored by the University of Texas, Texas Tech University, Baylor College of Medicine and others, the report recommends instituting a 3% tax on the annual revenue of hospitals and surgical centers, which could create almost $3 billion per year to help improve access to care. The report said the tax would allow the state to take advantage of matching federal funds and help give hospitals higher Medicaid reimbursement rates, offsetting the expense of treating the uninsured. In addition, the report recommends using electronic health records to improve management of costly, chronic illnesses; ensuring children get one hour of physical activity each day at school; increasing the number of doctors and nurses graduating from the state's medical schools; and adopting tax incentives for small businesses to provide health coverage to their employees. Most of the recommendations would require action by the Texas Legislature. "Texas needs to be more experimental in its efforts to improve coverage for the uninsured," Michael McKinney, chief operating officer of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and member of the task force, said. Richard Johnson, director of Texas Medical Association's Medical Economics division and task force member, said TMA usually would contest such a narrow tax, like the 3% hospital tax. Amanda Engler, spokesperson for the Texas Hospital Association, added, "It's not something the hospitals are real keen on. There would have to be a lot of trust there to ensure the money went back to hospitals to fund the Medicaid program" (Hopper, Houston Chronicle, 4/18).

The report is available online. Note: You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the file.

"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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