House Republicans Reject Medicaid Expansion
Texas has the highest rate and number of uninsured people in the country, by far. Hundreds of thousands more Texans lost their coverage during the pandemic. Rural health care is in crisis across the state, with the most rural hospital closures in recent years anywhere in the county in large part because they can’t continue footing the bill for uncompensated care of uninsured people. Yet Texas lawmakers again rejected a proposal on Thursday to draw down billions in federal funds to expand insurance coverage to more than 1 million Texans.
After just a few minutes of debate on the House floor on Thursday, Republican members voted down a budget amendment from Representative Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat, to accept the federal funds available under the Affordable Care Act and create a version of Medicaid expansion modeled after plans in other conservative states.