Over 50 Groups Urge Governor to Ensure Health Insurance Meets Texans’ Needs During Pandemic

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Peter Clark, 512-473-2274

Austin - Today, over 50 Texas organizations wrote to Governor Greg Abbott to urge him and other state leaders to take several immediate steps to ensure that Texans have adequate health coverage during the coronavirus pandemic. The letter — signed by the Texas Hospital Association, Texas Nurses Association, American Heart Association, Texans Care for Children, the Center for Public Policy Priorities, Children’s Defense Fund-Texas, and others — commended the efforts taken to date by the Governor and key state agencies, including the Department of State Health Services, the Health and Human Services Commission, and the Texas Department of Insurance.

However, the letter underscored that state leaders must take additional steps to ensure that more Texans have health insurance — and that health insurance plans are adequate — to cover health care needs related to COVID-19 and to provide financial stability to Texans during this economic crisis. Specifically, the organizations urged state leaders to: 

  • Take several steps to enhance Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) services, including suspending cost-sharing; ensuring coverage of at least 90-day supplies of medications; maximizing the use of telehealth; and eliminating inaccurate mid-year eligibility reviews in Children’s Medicaid that mistakenly remove eligible children from health coverage; 

  • Take advantage of opportunities provided to states under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act recently signed by President Trump, including the opportunity to opt-in to receive federal funding to ensure all Texans can be tested for COVID-19;

  • Enhance state-regulated private insurance by ensuring those plans eliminate out-of-pocket costs for testing and related services and making other statewide policy changes; and

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  • Reduce the state’s uninsured rate, the highest in the nation, by accepting Medicaid expansion funding to cover low-wage adults, urging federal officials to open a special enrollment period for purchasing insurance on healthcare.gov, and taking other steps.

“We want to make sure the specific question of financial barriers to testing is high on the Governor’s radar screen, because his team has so many things to coordinate. Gov. Abbott must take active steps to get these federal testing dollars for the uninsured to Texas, ” said Anne Dunkelberg, Associate Director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, one of the organizations that signed the letter. “The next big priority is to make sure Texans don’t avoid treatment over financial fear — or suffer financial calamity because they do get care!”

“This pandemic has reminded us that the well-being of our communities depends on the well-being of each and everyone one of us. We cannot and should not try to address this public health crisis through a patchwork of solutions. We need to take comprehensive, aggressive action immediately,’’ said Dr. Laura Guerra-Cardus, Deputy Director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Texas. 

"Under our current state policy, Texas is one of the only places in the country where there is no affordable insurance option for workers who are under the poverty level, whether they lost their job or just have a modest paycheck," said Adriana Kohler, Policy Director at Texans Care for Children. "Reducing the uninsured rate must be part of the state's strategy for containing the public health crisis and for helping families through this economic crisis. We deeply appreciate state leaders' hard work during this pandemic and stand ready to work with them to further address these challenges."

A copy of the full letter is available below.

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