Our local health care system is in crisis and needs to be resuscitated immediately.

 

Booking an appointment with a physician is becoming increasingly more difficult and too many healthcare facilities have been forced to close. Ascension Providence recently announced that it closed its Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, Hearing Center, Lacy Lakeview Family Medicine Clinic and DePaul Center. The closure of the DePaul Center and Helping Others Take Initiative is immensely consequential because these are two of the few mental health facilities in McLennan County.

 

The Health Resources and Services Administration recently listed McLennan County as a community with a healthcare professional shortage and Texas ranks dead last in mental health funding. 

 

And yet, Texas representatives have continuously voted against expanding Medicaid. This refusal means that we are missing out on $8 billion a year of our hard earned tax dollars, which are sent to the federal government each year and DO NOT return to Texas.  Those hard earned tax dollars paid to the federal government by Texans are literally turned over to other states who have expanded Medicaid.  We Texans then are forced to pay for indigent health care in Texas through our local property taxes.  We are literally paying twice for health care in Texas.  This is fiscally irresponsible and should not continue. 

Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest, Ascension Providence and Waco Family Medicine have all specifically requested our state representative and to expand Medicaid. Yet our prior Republican representative has repeatedly and stubbornly refused to allow us access to those dollars by voting to expanding Medicaid. 

 

The future of our healthcare is dependent upon McLennan County electing a Democrat to represent us in the Texas House of Representatives.

As your State Representative, I will listen to our three local hospitals, and our doctors and health care providers, and vote FOR the expansion of Medicaid.