A Texas mom faced a harrowing situation: being uninsured, having a young child to raise, and learning she had two serious chronic health conditions. Our communications coordinator spent time with Alexandria Garza to share the story of one family, out of many in our state, who need the Medicaid solution that health reform offers.
While Alexandria has some health care now, it isn't as comprehensive as Medicaid, and she has no affordable private health care options as a consumer with a pre-existing condition. While some states offer low-income parents the chance to receive Medicaid if they need it, that's almost never true here for poor working parents who aren't currently pregnant.
As the video discusses, having a job and earning an annual income of even $3,400 is too much for a Texas parent like Alexandria to qualify for Medicaid today. That affects the children of uninsured parents in all sorts of ways: from making those
children more likely to be uninsured themselves to making it more likely that their parents have unmet mental health needs, which can affect
their children's development.
Fortunately, in 2014, the
Georgetown Center for Children and Families estimates that
710,000 Texas parents--40% of all the uninsured parents in our state today--would qualify for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. All it takes is Texas getting on board with health reform's solution for these families.
Our governor's statements on a Medicaid expansion are not the end of this discussion. Texas still can and must seize the opportunity before us. While our video makes the case from the family perspective, economists from The Perryman Group offer another point: Texas faces only one rational choice when it comes to this issue, and that is to move forward in offering Texans like Alexandria the Medicaid care they need.
