The one-sided Medicaid show in Texas

[Geee]

Watchdog.org:

Medicaid in Texas and the federal government that continues to expand it are just as voracious and as difficult to pay for as they have ever been.

 

Medicaid expansion ran loose in Texas last week.

Medicaid expansion ran loose in Texas last week.

Somebody had to say it. You certainly weren’t going to find it in your standard issue news coverage.

 

What you did learn over the past few weeks is that 5 million children in low-income homes in Texas are supposedly at medical risk because the state stubbornly refuses to expand its Medicaid program; that roughly 60,000 children in low-income homes stand to lose care because the Legislature cut $350 million in Medicaid payments; and that some nurses are finding it more lucrative to work at McDonald’s because Medicaid reimbursement rates for nursing homes are so pitiful.

 

The Houston Chronicle editorial board perfectly captured the direction of this flurry of Medicaid coverage.

 

“No measure of moral or economic calculus,” the board wrote, “justifies the continued resistance of Gov. Greg Abbott and the Legislature to Medicaid expansion that would make healthier the lives of many of the people they’re supposed to serve.”

 

Why all the attention? Maybe it had something to do with a House Appropriations Committee, whose two-day Medicaid review hearing earlier this month in Austin got almost no actual media coverage.

 

None of these stories contained what might be considered “news.” Almost all of the material, data and quotes, was supplied by advocates for Medicaid expansion.