Bush Stats

[Jim Westrich]

Texas is one of the few states that bans the "corporate practice of 
medicine."  Consequently they have a lot of public and non-profit hospitals 
(and a lot of HMO's playing fast and loose with their "non-profit" 
status).  This makes up a little bit for their stingy Medicaid eligibility 
and mean spirited state health policy.  Medicaid spending per person in 
Texas is consistently 20-30% below the national averages.

Bush's initial plan when elected governor for Medicaid reform was 
horrible.  He proposed eligibility for managed Medicaid at 45% FPL for 
adults (!!!) and 133% FPL for kids. Most of the state would only be served 
by one plan.  HCFA said no way (and they have let some other mean programs 
through). A few years later, George W. Bush "led" the nation in mean 
spiritedness when he booted 12,700 disabled (SSI eligible) children off 
Medicaid (although many retained Medicaid through poverty 
eligibility).  The legislature gave the disabled kids their eligibility 
back about a year later after some really bad publicity.  Compassionate 
conservatism I guess.

Outside of Dallas and Houston the rest of the state is greatly underserved 
by health care professionals.  The Texas Department of Health has declared 
112 entire counties and parts of 22 others health professional shortage 
areas. The poor areas and the colonias are the most underserved populations 
in the United States.

Also, Texas is 43rd in spending for people with developmental disabilities 
and 42nd for community options for people with developmental disabilities 
(source:  The State of the States in Developmental Disabilities (5th ed.); 
Braddock, Hemp, Parish, and Westrich).

Peace,

Jim

At 11:29 AM 3/13/00 , you wrote:
>Do you have the references for these stats?
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: <mailto:uswa12 at Lorainccc.edu>Tom Lehman
>>
>>The state of Texas, under the leadership of Governor George W. Bush, is
>>ranked as follows:
>>
>>         50th in spending for teachers' salaries
>>         49th in spending on the environment
>>         48th in per-capita funding for public health
>>         47th in delivery of social services
>>         42nd in child-support collections
>>         41st in per-capita spending on public education and ...
>>
>>         5th in percentage of population living in poverty
>>         1st in air and water pollution
>>         1st in percentage of poor working parents without insurance
>>         1st in percentage of children without health insurance
>>         1st in executions (an average of 1 every 2 weeks for Bush's 5 
>> years as
>>         governor)

"What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?"

--Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). Mac, in *The Threepenny Opera *, act 3, sc. 9.
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