The Texas Medical Association’s 2019 Legislative Priorities
By Admin | January 31, 2019
With Texas making headlines regarding its uninsured rate and rural hospital closings, the Texas Medical Association has a tall task ahead of the 2019 legislative session in Austin. The 2018 election saw Democratic gains across the country, including Texas, but the state still remains in Republican hands. Legislators will have a chance to improve some of the state’s most persistent problems, and the TMA hopes to represent physicians and uphold its mission of improving the health of all Texans.
The TMA is the country’s largest association with 52,000 physician members, and D CEO Healthcare spoke with the organization’s president Dr. Douglas Curran, a family practice physician from Athens, Texas about the organization’s legislative priorities in 2019.
Curran emphasized the TMA’s desire to address the state’s uninsured rate, which sits at 17 percent and leads the nation. He wants to find help for the working poor who can’t afford insurance and often drive up total medical costs because they wait until their problems are more costly before they seek help. In the end everyone else picks up the tab, driving up medical costs for everyone. Curran wants to see Texas take advantage of federal dollars, whether that means expanding medicaid or looking at block grants from the federal government. Texas is one of 14 states that hasn’t expanded medicaid.
For more on this, please read The Texas Medical Association’s 2019 Legislative Priorities, by D CEO Healthcare.
