When it comes to shortening life spans and allowing premature deaths, Texas represents the national example of what not to do. Although millions are barred from Medicaid, Texas planners are not working to cover more people. More than one-fourths of the state’s population has no Texas health insurance coverage.
Texas continues to neglect higher numbers of uninsured residents than other states. It ranks 44th out of 50 states for health care spending per person, 49th for per capita Medicaid spending and dead last at 50th for mental health spending. Only the residents of two states (Mississippi and New Mexico) are less likely to get health insurance through employment than Texans are. It’s estimated that only 44 percent of Texans have access to coverage through an employer, which typically makes Texas health insurance plans more affordable.
Gaps In Health Insurance For Texas Correlate With High Death Rates
Texas may have a younger population than many states, but it still has more trouble with obesity and more people dying from diabetes and heart disease than some other states. At the other end of the spectrum (and the nation), only 10 percent of the people in Vermont need health insurance. With fewer insurance companies and major medical centers to confront, this little state has big ambitions. Even though Vermont’s residents fare better than Texans, leaders in Vermont have proposed one of the most comprehensive attempts to provide health care in the country.
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin says that health care is a right and we should stop treating it as a privilege for accumulating wealth. He maintains that access to medical treatment should not be restricted based on your age, your employment or your health.
Speaking out on National Public Radio, Shumlin responded to critics who claim that providing health care can’t be done and has never been done with a reality check. “And I say, thc cbd us, wait a minute, slow down. It’s actually being done by everybody else in the developed world except for us. And I see this as an economic development issue,” he counters.
The governor is promoting an idea beyond federal health care reform that even exceeds what Massachusetts has accomplished. He sees a universal, single-payer system to protect all residents that might be funded through a payroll levy on employers and employees. To that end, bills have passed both state houses and Shumlin expects to sign such legislation into law by 2014.
