There's an outside chance at real political change in Texas soon, not at the hands of the growing Latino population there. It could come from a much more powerful, and deep-pocketed source: business leaders. They're fed up with the state's Republican governor and legislature's stubborn refusal of Medicaid expansion, and the
billions it's going to cost the state.
"It's our money that we are sending to Washington, D.C.," says Bill Hammond, CEO of the Texas Association of Business, which includes many of the state's richest and most powerful business owners. "We are not getting it back," he says. "We pay for it with corporate income tax, we pay for it with our personal income tax and we pay it in the fact that our premiums are higher than they would be if everyone was insured."
"Texas businesses pay almost 63 percent of all state and local taxes," Hammond says.
He says if the state expanded Medicaid it would save Texas business billions of dollars a year that could be invested in upgrading equipment, hiring new employees, providing raises and rewarding shareholders.
For every dollar the state would pay into Medicaid expansion, it would earn back $1.30 from the economic activity created, according to an analysis by Ray Perryman. He's an economist who has consulted for the Texas Legislature and six governors. That economic activity would top out at $3 billion in 10 years, creating 300,000 new jobs each year, he says. […]
Totally aside from the health benefits, Perryman says, when you look at the numbers, "You look at them and you say, 'This is a no-brainer. We need to be doing this.' It's really an apolitical situation. It's just math."
What that means in real terms is that one in four Texans is uninsured. It also means that the state's hospitals are losing billions. Parkland Hospital in Dallas, alone, lost $765 million last year in providing uncompensated care helping those uninsured people. All the state's hospitals combined lost $5.5 billion. That's not sustainable, not for Parkland, not for any hospital and certainly not for the state.
Yeah, it's simple math and it's a no-brainer, but for Texas Republicans none of that matters because it's Obamacare. Is it going to be enough for a political revolution in Texas?
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