An effort to expand government health care for working poor Texans is likely dead for this legislative session, supporters say — mired in conservative opposition and faced with a fast-approaching deadline in the Republican-led Texas Legislature. Medicaid expansion in Texas

Medicaid expansion “appears extremely unlikely to move this session,” said state Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, author of Senate Bill 117, a plan that had bipartisan support among House members but not in his own chamber. “It appears that for purposes of this session, lingering misinformation and political intransigence are still too large to overcome.”

Its demise means the state leaves on the table billions of dollars in federal incentives that supporters say would not only pay for the expansion but add money to state coffers and lower costs for hospitals that care for large numbers of uninsured patients. Medicaid expansion in Texas

Texas has the largest number of uninsured residents in the nation, many of them working adults who can’t afford private or subsidized insurance but don’t qualify for Medicaid because they earn too much. Roughly 20% of the state’s population lacks health insurance — a number health officials say has grown since more than a million Texans lost jobs and, in many cases, health coverage because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Committee chairs in both the House and Senate have blocked bills from getting hearings, effectively running down the clock with only three weeks left in the session. Opponents of expanding Medicaid to an estimated 1.4 million adult Texans who would qualify under the Affordable Care Act of 2010 argue that the program is poorly managed and financially unsustainable, and that expansion encourages government dependence, delivers poor health outcomes, and crowds out children and people with disabilities who need it the most. “The new reality is that Medicaid expansion isn’t just dead for now, it should be dead-dead,” said David Balat, director of the Right on Healthcare initiative at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. “There’s no longer any rational justification for expanding Medicaid to help the uninsured.” Medicaid expansion in Texas

Follow the APA guidelines