The Texas Medical Association agrees that the system is broken, but it has recommended expanding Medicaid while improving it, said President-elect Stephen Brotherton.

"It is morally unconscionable for national-state public policy gridlock to deny proper medical care for over 1 million of our state's low-income families and Texans with disabilities," he said. "The current system offers the promise of coverage without adequate funding to ensure access to care. It is fraught with exasperating, unyielding red tape."

The association conducted a poll that found only three out of 10 doctors are accepting new Medicaid patients because the program does not reimburse them for the full cost of services. Therefore the association says the system is failing because it does not pay doctors a reasonable fee, not because it is too expensive.

The Texas Hospital Association also supports Medicaid expansion because they say it will move uninsured patients into doctor's offices and out of emergency departments, where care is 300 percent more expensive. Medicaid expansion would also mean hospitals would no longer have to absorb the costs of treating indigent patients who can't pay their bills and don't qualify for the program.

"Patients who can't pay for their own health care services cause higher insurance premiums and higher taxes," Dan Stultz, the association's president and chief executive officer, said. "That's why it makes sense to provide health coverage to more Texans, especially because Texas has the highest rate of uninsured in the United States."

Yet conservative Republicans don't seem swayed. Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, wrote an editorial opposing expansion.
SNIP