Report: TX May Lose 362,000 Health Jobs Due to High Uninsured Rate

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

Austin - A new report from Families USA projects that Texas will lose hundreds of thousands of health care-related jobs if unemployment remains high and state and federal leaders fail to address the state’s high uninsured rate.

In July, Families USA reported that an estimated 659,000 Texas adults became uninsured in the spring when they lost their jobs and employer-based health insurance. This week’s report explains that the growing uninsured rate translates into a massive loss of revenue for hospitals, doctor’s offices, and other health care-related employers that will lead to the loss of 215,000 to 362,000 jobs in Texas if the national unemployment rate returns to 15 percent. Nationwide, 1.5 to 2.5 million health care jobs would be lost.

“If leaders in Texas and Congress want the economy to recover, and they want families to have the health care and financial security they need during this crisis, then they need to work on reducing our state’s uninsured rate,” said Katie Mitten, Health Policy Associate at Texans Care for Children, a member of the Cover Texas Now coalition. “Texas already had the worst uninsured rate in the nation before the pandemic hit, and now it’s getting even worse. To make sure Texas is supporting infants and toddlers during the critical early years of brain development, state leaders should particularly focus on making sure that moms and kids have access to health insurance.”

Texas health coverage advocates have outlined several steps that state leaders should take to reduce the uninsured rate, including expanding Medicaid, as Missouri voted to do yesterday. Texas is one of the only remaining states where Medicaid health insurance is essentially unavailable to workers below the poverty line, a policy decision that leaves many of them uninsured.

Additionally, Texas organizations are urging Congress to increase Medicaid funding in the upcoming COVID relief package and to maintain temporary federal requirements that prevent the state from reinstating policies that remove Texans from Medicaid insurance during this crisis. If Congress ends those requirements, Texas could resume terminating health insurance for new mothers two months after childbirth and removing eligible children from Medicaid insurance.

The July report from Families USA estimated that 29 percent of non-elderly Texas adults are uninsured, the highest rate in the nation. This week, Families USA also published additional US Census Bureau data showing millions of additional Americans lost their health insurance during recent weeks.

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