By Ben Philpott, KUT News and Texas Tribune for AudioTexas
AUSTIN – Texas budget writers got a briefing on the state’s health care programs Wednesday. Many of the biggest questions focused on how the state can reduce fraud, and what to do about ever increasing health care costs.
The senate’s initial budget proposal spends more than $70 billion on health and human services. That’s a 2 percent increase from the current budget. But so far, the senate hasn’t funded enrollment growth in Medicaid. That’s the program that provides health care for low-income and disabled Texans. It’s one of the healthcare budget’s biggest items.
Republican Tommy Williams of The Woodlands chairs the Senate Finance Committee. He says the omission is just to start the conversation on how the state funds the program. But Williams warns the state can’t continue to fund growth in the program at the rate it has over the past decade.
TOMMY WILLIAMS: “And hope to build all the facilities that our institutions of higher education have, to build the highways that we need, and the water infrastructure that we need for our state to continue growing.”
Williams says Senators will propose many fixes in hopes of lowering costs.
WILLIAMS: “But I don’t think those choices have to be whether we’re going to serve that population or not. It’s going to be about how they are served.”
One of the most hotly debated political points of the healthcare budget is whether or not Texas will join in an expansion of Medicaid called for under the Affordable Care Act. Governor Rick Perry and other Republican leaders have promised the state will not join in the expansion. Democrats say the state would only have to spend about 1 billion dollars a year over the next 3 years to get 27 billion in federal matching funds. One suggestion lawmakers heard yesterday would allow the state’s largest counties to use local tax dollars to draw federal matching funds. That’s a point Houston Democrat Royce West wanted to emphasize.
ROYCE WEST: “Let me make sure I understand this. In order to cover an additional 1.2 million people in the state of Texas, we have the ability to allow counties – if they can do so – to use their GR to cover more Texans without the state incurring an expense? …/That’s correct/.”
One other expense – although a more popular one among Republicans – is a call to change the state’s mental health system. That call has gotten louder amid recent mass shootings. Health and Human Services commissioner Kyle Janek.
KYLE JANEK: “We are going to bring you some ideas that we think will suffice in the area of mental health. It’s getting a lot of attention now. And I’ll point out to the committee – that there is no silver bullet. Anything I were to come up with you could say, that won’t prevent Aurora, that won’t prevent Newtown, that won’t prevent Virginia Tech.” (:20)
The Senate finance committee will continue to hold hearings on each part of the budget over the next few days. Then break into smaller groups to start making recommendations on cuts or increases.
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