“Expanding Texas’ Medicaid program is short-sighted and irresponsible. Current Medicaid enrollees should not be asked to remain in a system that gives increasingly poor health outcomes and a declining access to care, nor should 1.5 million Texans be forced into this broken program, as they would be if Medicaid were expanded.
“The time has come for fundamental Medicaid reform, not expansion. It is vital and imperative that state lawmakers ensure quality, affordable health care for the state’s low-income and disabled residents — but Texas, not the federal government, is best-suited to design and implement reforms that will control costs and improve outcomes.
“Medicaid expansion represents a short-term infusion of federal dollars to Texas, but it does nothing to address the structural failures of a program that provides sub-standard health care and poor access to physicians. Legislators must do better than doubling down on a failed program, and by pursuing fundamental Medicaid reform, they can.”