EHF CEO Elena Marks talks to host Evan Smith about the Texas Legislature’s debate over Medicaid expansion — why it’s back, whether it’s got a chance, and the price Texas pays for being first among all states in uninsured residents, adults and kids.
“#Medicaid expansion is not the panacea for all that ails Texas, but it’s the single biggest thing Texas can do to reduce the uninsured rate,” says EHF’s Elena Marks on Texas Tribune‘s Point of Order podcast.
She says the real solution to help uninsured Texans working at restaurants, grocery stores, and constructions sites get health insurance is for the federal government to extend the Medicaid 1115 waiver in Texas AND for the state to expand health insurance coverage.
“The waiver alone isn’t the answer,” Marks says. “It doesn’t do anything to give people health insurance coverage, see doctors, provide a way to get medicine, or help manage chronic conditions. It does none of that.”
