Medicaid REACH Act Exposes the Harm of Denying Health Coverage to so Many Texans

***Press Release***

Medicaid REACH Act Exposes the Harm of Denying Health Coverage to so Many Texans

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chair, led colleagues in introducing the Medicaid Report on Expansion of Access to Coverage for Health (Medicaid REACH) Act to require official disclosure and verification by states, like Texas, of the data identifying who suffers when they continue denying their citizens health coverage financed with federal dollars to expand Medicaid coverage.

"One year into this horrible pandemic, whose deadly burden has been heavily borne by economically disadvantaged Texans, it's time to measure more precisely the true cost of state Republican leaders' denial of health coverage to so many of our neighbors," said Congressman Doggett. "They have had more than a decade to apply federal dollars to fund Medicaid expansion. State action could assure an estimated 1.4 million Texans access to a family physician, prescription drug coverage, mental health and substance use treatment, and other care. So many Texans are too poor to qualify for federal tax credits to access the Affordable Health Care marketplace insurance policies."

"While the number of those without insurance has grown with pandemic-related job loss, Texas has long been a national leader in the number and proportion of its uninsured citizens. Texas taxpayers continue contributing to the cost of providing Medicaid to citizens in other states while state Republicans, beholden to rigid political dogma, deny Texans access to this same health insurance lifeline," he said. "The Medicaid Report on Expansion of Access to Coverage for Health Act would mandate that Texas and other non-expansion states provide official verification of the harm their failure has caused, highlighting the depths of the uninsured crisis."

This legislation would require states like Texas to report annually the estimated number of those uninsured for at least six months (noting age range, gender, race and ethnicity), how many could gain coverage from utilizing available federal dollars, and the amount of hospital uncompensated care costs, and a breakdown of the source of such costs, for both rural and non-rural hospitals.

In Texas, Medicaid expansion could cover 1.4 million currently-uninsured Texans, and federal dollars would cover 90% of the cost. Nationally, only 12 states have not adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion and according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 4.0 million uninsured nonelderly adults would become eligible for Medicaid if every state expanded. More information by state here:

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