In an attempt to reduce the reliance on expensive, hospital-based care to make primary and preventive care affordable for the working poor, Texas is creating a new state-administered “Health Opportunity Pool.” The plan submitted to the federal government is supposed to increase the number of people in Texas with health coverage (lower the uninsured) but benefits would be less than what Medicaid currently offers.
The most interesting part of the whole plan is who is offering the coverage… private Texas health insurance companies. As a result, safety-net hospitals like Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas are wary of the effect of shifting money into the pockets of health insurance companies.
If you take the money away from the large safety-net hospitals … and put it into insurance companies, they may dissipate the patients everywhere.
said Ron Anderson, Parkland’s president and chief executive officer.
If the federal government approves the plan, the working poor who are 19 years or older can apply for subsidized coverage through the “Health Opportunity Pool” starting next fall. Last spring, lawmakers approved an extra $150 million of state money to increase reimbursements for hospitals that treat Medicaid patients. The federal government will match that increase with $246 million of federal funds.
The restrictions on Medicaid in Texas are so strict right now that a working parent with two children making more than $308/month would not qualify. I guess the state of Texas expects them to take the $309/month they do make and put 60% of it towards a health insurance premium.
Under the new Health Opportunity Pool, a working parent of two could earn up to $2,862/month and still be eligible for subsidized health insurance coverage through private insurers. Applicants will be helped on a first come first served basis until funds run out.
Do You Want to Help the Poor? Go To A Strip Club!!
A new Texas state tax of $5 per customer will go toward a new state sex assault prevention fund. Over the next two years, the fee is expected to raise $87 million, $25 million of that will go to the sex assault prevention fund and the rest will go to the Texas Health Opportunity Pool.
I had to make a decision to find a revenue source for issues important to me. It won’t impact business and will serve a good cause.
said Senator Royce West, (D)Dallas, who sponsored the bill in the senate.
