Texans Reacts to Health Care Ruling

[sonias]

3. Excellent and comprehensive review of what it means for Texs

Burnt Orange Report 6/28/12
Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Care Act

(snip)
HIGH STAKES FOR TEXAS

Texas arguably had the most to gain - or most to lose - from this morning's decision. For starters, nearly a quarter of the state is uninsured, giving Texas the highest rate of uninsured citizens in the country. With the Act, that figure could shrink to less than 8 or 9% of all Texans by 2014.

An article last week from Kaiser Health News highlights the problems currently plaguing Texas. According to the piece, in Houston alone, nearly one in three residents doesn't have health insurance. What about federally-backed programs like Medicaid?

"With its fiscally conservative philosophy and cash-strapped state budget, Texas does not offer Medicaid coverage to childless adults unless they are pregnant, disabled or elderly. Parents of children covered by welfare are eligible for the state-federal health program only if they make no more than $188 a month for a family of three."

The article goes on to cite the fact that many workers in Texas are working full-time or hours exceeding a full-time position; however, they are, in fact, cobbling together multiple positions, and none of those individual jobs offers employer-sponsored health-care; moreover, the percentage of Texans with employer-sponsored insurance is ten percentage points lower than the national average of 61 percent, according to the Kaiser article.

Great read. Very meaty! Kudos to Edward Garris the writer at BOR for this blog post.