Health care priorities: 2023 Texas Lege Agenda
Texas 2036 is hard at work drilling down into the policy issues that matter most to Texans. Here’s a look at our health care priorities for the upcoming 88th Legislative Session.
Texas 2036 policy focus:
Our Health Care policy efforts:
- Affordability and transparency of care
- Availability of medical care
- Increasing health insurance coverage
The goal: We want to ensure that Texans are able to obtain the high-quality care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. In order to achieve this, it must be both available and affordable.
The challenges we face: In many cases, incentives are misaligned, which has resulted in inefficient allocation of resources and a low return on investment. While the challenge is great, so is the opportunity.
Because of the growing bipartisan recognition that our current health care system isn’t working well, there is a chance for real, impactful reforms that can help ensure that all Texans are able to access and afford the care they need, when they need it.
Affordable Health Care:
Improving competition: Texas needs to address the negative impacts of highly consolidated markets, using a light-touch method of prohibiting anti-competitive contracting practices that drive up prices without improvements in outcomes.
Texas employers — and their employees — on average, are paying 2.5 times what Medicare does for the same service.
Price transparency: Texas must ensure that price transparency rules are enforced and eliminate remaining barriers for patients to obtain useful information on price and quality at the point of decision.
59% of Texans have skipped needed health care due to cost, including 56% of Texans with insurance, according to a 2021 Episcopal Health Foundation survey.
Texas Voter Poll take: 90% of Texans said they should be informed how much medical treatment will cost before they receive it.
Available Health Care:
Improving access: Texas has an opportunity to improve rural access to primary care in shortage areas by expanding practice options for nurses and pharmacists.
More than 200 Texas counties are federally designated primary care shortage areas in their entirety.
- 81% of Texans support allowing highly trained nurses to provide more primary care health services in shortage areas.
Health Care coverage:
All options on the table: To increase the number of insured Texans, policy options include providing eligible new mothers with extended Medicaid, increasing current Medicaid eligibility thresholds for low-income Texans and supporting actions that would result in more Texans enrolling in plans in the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.
18% of Texans — nearly 5 million people across the state — are uninsured.
- Uninsured Texans: Who are they?
- Why 5 million Texans are uninsured: new study
- ACA Marketplace: More Texans are signing up
Learn more about our 2023 Legislative Agenda.
