The Texas Hospital Association has criticized Gov. Rick Perry's plan to request a block grant from the federal government to reform the state's Medicaid program without expanding it, saying the proposal will do little to lessen the negative economic impact of the large uninsured population in Texas.
Earlier this week, Gov. Perry sent a letter to Texas' Health and Human Services Commission asking the agency to request a block grant from the federal government that would allow the state to reform its Medicaid program without federal approval and without adhering to the Medicaid expansion plan laid out in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a report from The Texas Tribune.
Under Gov. Perry's proposal, the state would receive a fixed amount of federal funding to run the program. Currently, Texas gets about $60 in federal matching funds for every $40 it spends on Medicaid, according to the report.
Because the proposal doesn't expand Medicaid coverage, it won't remedy the issue of the state's high rate of uninsured individuals, according to the Texas Hospital Association. Nearly 33 percent of working-age adults in the state are uninsured, placing a financial burden on Texas hospitals, which provide $5.5 billion in uncompensated care annually, according to a press release from the association.
An expansion of the program under the healthcare reform law would add more than 1 million Texans to Medicaid by 2017, with the federal government funding 100 percent of the additional cost for three years and not less than 90 percent after that. Texas currently has the highest uninsured population in the United States.
However, Gov. Perry has opposed the expansions as "misguided, and ultimately doomed." He has argued only three in 10 Texas physicians accept new Medicaid patients, which he fears would shrink if more newly eligible Medicaid patients flooded the market.
Earlier this year, Texas House representatives also voted to ban the state legislature from expanding Medicaid.
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Texas Lawmakers Vote to Prohibit Medicaid Expansion