Tech & Site Admin
Jun 24, 20211 min
Low-income Texans have significantly worse health care availability than in other Southern states that have expanded Medicaid.
If Texas expands Medicaid, an estimated 1.2 million uninsured Texans would become eligible for Medicaid (1).
Most low-income Texans think Medicaid would have positive economic effects on their families and the state.
Medicaid expansion in other states has been shown to have a wide range of benefits, including
improved access to care
affordability of care
better self-reported health
with no reductions in employment (2).
Medicaid expansion would bring an estimated $100 billion of federal funding over the next decade into Texas.
Prior research suggests that Medicaid expansion will:
help reduce the amount of uncompensated care - this would decrease rural
hospital closures (80% of which happen in nonexpansion states)
improve the financial health of hospitals and
improve the financial health of providers
benefit the state economy (3).
Urge Texas leaders to include coverage in the state’s request
for federal Medicaid dollars.
(1) Buettgens, Blumberg, and Pan, Uninsured in Texas, 2018.
(2) Mazurenko et al., “Effects Of Medicaid Expansion,” 2018.
(3) Norris, “Texas and ACA’s Medicaid,” 2019.