Harris
County is home to over 3.5 million people. More than 800,000
of these residents do not have adequate health care coverage.
They are either uninsured or under insured. Created in
1965, the Harris County Hospital District serves as the health
care safety net for all the residents of Harris County.
From America's finest emergency room and trauma center at the
Ben Taub Hospital to the neonatal intensive care units at the
LBJ Hospital, when someone sick or injured shows up at our
door, they receive treatment. This is not only a public
health issue for our community, but a requirement under
federal law.
The cost of providing these health care services is
staggering. The Harris County Hospital District budget
in 2004 alone was over $750 million. In earlier years,
much of this cost was reimbursed by Medicaid and other federal
funds, but increasingly the federal and state government is
pushing the cost down to local county government. This
year the property taxpayers in Harris County picked up
approximately $400 million of this bill.
The District served almost 300,000 patients last year, up 20%
from 2003. The need for health care services is overwhelming
and increasing every day. And while most of these
patients were from Harris County, we have become the health
care safety net for a region that stretches from Louisiana to
Mexico. Last year we spent $150 million on care for
foreign nationals (both legal and illegal) and out of county
residents.
The Texas State Legislature is currently in session and it
appears that Harris County, the most populous county in Texas,
is going to be hit hard with deep cuts in the Medicaid
program. Medicaid is a federal/state program that helps
cover the costs of indigent health care and medical services.
In other words, the State takes on the role of paying for
certain healthcare services for the poor. By cutting or
not restoring eligibility, benefits, or funding in Medicaid
and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the State
is saving millions of dollars in its budget; but it also
leaves millions of federal tax dollars in Washington, D.C.,
which moves the costs to local property taxpayers.
Harris County taxpayers will have to pay more out of their
pockets for medical services.
Considering all the changes made to Medicaid, CHIP, and mental
health services, coupled with the legislative bills under
consideration, the Harris County Hospital District could lose
between $94 million to $103 million dollars next year (SFY
2005). To maintain the current level of operation, the
District would be forced to ask Commissioners Court for a tax
rate increase to make up the financial loss.
The taxpayers of Harris County have been generous in
supporting the Hospital District, but you can only go back to
the same well so many times before it runs dry. The
Harris County delegation is working hard in Austin to block
the bills that will shift more of the financial burden back to
us, but they are in the minority.
Now is the time for the State of Texas to play fair, and not
further punish the urban counties that have been required to
take on more and more patients from outside their borders
while managing a growing indigent population of their own.
Harris County does its part; the State needs to do theirs.
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