<html> 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: <blockquote type=cite cite>Do you have the references for these stats? <blockquote type=cite cite>----- Original Message ----- From: <a href="mailto:uswa12@Lorainccc.edu">Tom Lehman</a> 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) </blockquote></blockquote> <x-html>"What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?" --Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). Mac, in *The Threepenny Opera *, act 3, sc. 9.</x-html>