DALLAS – Local opposition to Gov. Rick Perry’s refusal to expand Medicaid is continuing to surface, as the state’s 254 counties cope with the nation’s highest rate of uninsured residents.
Protests are particularly strong in South Texas, whose largely Hispanic population votes solidly Democratic.
Perry, a Republican whose party controls the state legislature, has rejected provisions of the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that it is an intrusion into state sovereignty.
In a state of 25 million people, only Perry can decide whether Texans receive the benefit. Democrats have called on Perry to include the issue in the current special session of the legislature, but the state’s longest-serving governor has shown no inclination to change his mind.
“Medicaid expansion is a misguided, and ultimately doomed, attempt to mask the shortcomings of Obamacare,” Perry said at an April 1 news conference. “It would benefit no one in our state to see their taxes skyrocket and our economy crushed as our budget crumbled under the weight of oppressive Medicaid costs.”
In the waning days of the regular session of the 2013 legislature, a Republican effort to bolster Perry’s position and require legislative approval for any expansion of Medicaid narrowly failed in the state House.
Citing Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s decision to accept Medicaid expansion, the Beaumont Enterprise newspaper called for Perry to emulate his fellow Republican on the basis of simple logic.
“If Texas commits $15 billion to expanded Medicaid over the next decade, the feds will kick in $100 billion,” the editorial said. “That’s real money for unmet needs. Perry is still rejecting that deal to make a political point. It’s high time for him to drop the stubborn opposition and do what’s right for the Medicaid recipients, doctors and hospitals in his state.”
Economist Ray Perryman, founder of the Perryman Group in Waco, Texas, issued a detailed report on the benefits to Texas of accepting the Medicaid expansion, including coverage of health-care costs for prison inmates.
“It is beyond question that, from an economic perspective, Texas should participate in the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act,” Perryman wrote.
Under the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, the federal government would cover 100% of the costs for expanding Medicaid through 2016, then scale back to 90% by 2020. Currently, the government covers 57% of Medicaid’s costs.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court, in upholding the so-called “Obamacare” law, ruled that states could opt out of the Medicaid expansion aspect of the law if their governors chose to.
Perry ran a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, emphasizing limitations on federal government.
In Texas’s southernmost Cameron County, expanding Medicaid would add $7 billion added to the local economy over a decade, according to Perryman. Nearby Hidalgo County, home to 800,000 residents, would get a $12.6 billion boost.
While 25% of Texans have no health coverage, the rate rises to 38% in the Rio Grande Valley region of south Texas. The existing Medicaid program is closed to anyone earning more than $196 a month. With no public hospitals in the region, private hospitals cover millions in unpaid bills for emergency care, officials said.
Medicaid expansion would cover 1.5 million Texans living below the poverty line, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
In the 14 states with Republican governors who have rejected a combined $8.4 billion of federal funding, the decision means 3.6 million citizens will not receive health insurance, according to a report from the Rand Corp.
