By: Perry S.C.R. No. 24
(In the Senate - Filed February 22, 2017; March 7, 2017,
read first time and referred to Committee on Health & Human
Services; April 10, 2017, reported adversely, with favorable
Committee Substitute by the following vote: Yeas 6, Nays 2;
April 10, 2017, sent to printer.)
Click here to see the committee vote
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR S.C.R. No. 24 By: Perry
SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Millions of medically vulnerable Texans need health
care but have neither insurance nor personal funds to cover the
cost; and
WHEREAS, Texas Medicaid was created to help the medically
vulnerable, but the huge cost of the federal health care
bureaucracy reduces the ability of the program to provide in a
timely manner the services and goods mandated by the federal
government; and
WHEREAS, Funding deficiencies also cause Texas Medicaid to
fail the provider community, including individuals and
institutions, by offering less than adequate recompense for the
services and goods they supply; Medicaid reimbursement rates are
below the cost of doing business for most providers, and as a
result, more than 30 percent of Texas physicians cannot afford to
take care of Medicaid enrollees; and
WHEREAS, In recent years, the federally mandated expansion of
Medicaid benefits has caused reimbursement rates to plummet
further, even as the number of Medicaid-covered patients has risen;
consequently, wait times for appointments have lengthened
dramatically; a study conducted by Illinois Medicaid found that
delays in care for Medicaid patients had resulted in unnecessary
deaths; and
WHEREAS, Medicaid is the largest single-cost item in the
Texas state budget, accounting for 30 percent of all spending; it
consumes financial resources that are sorely needed to support
other programs, including foster care, education, job training,
border security, and infrastructure; and
WHEREAS, The original Medicaid legislation of 1965 clearly
specified that Medicaid programs would be jointly funded by state
and federal governments and administered by the states; this
framework is in keeping with the intent of the founding fathers in
that it allows states to use their superior knowledge of the needs
of their residents and how best to expend the resources necessary to
regulate, administer, and control their own programs; states are
better positioned than the federal government to innovate and
compete, and they can take advantage of the laboratory of ideas to
provide superior alternatives to existing delivery systems;
nevertheless, today, Washington, D.C., bureaucrats at the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services have decision-making power over
factors that drive costs in Texas, among them eligibility
standards, verification processes, compliance oversight, and
benefit packages; although Texas has received federal approval of a
Medicaid 1115 Waiver, which grants some additional flexibility,
this does not address the root cause of problems created by the lack
of state control; and
WHEREAS, When it expanded Medicaid eligibility, the federal
government promised greater access to health care, but medically
vulnerable residents of Texas have experienced cruel
disillusionment; without real control over the administration of
its own Medicaid program, Texas cannot address the problems that
arise in the delivery of required services with limited funds, and
the state cannot properly balance its priorities and discharge its
responsibilities to its citizens; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 85th Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby respectfully urge the United States Congress to uphold the
original intent of the 1965 Medicaid law to maintain a jointly
funded, state-administered program by continuing joint funding of
Texas Medicaid under the current Federal Medical Assistance
Percentages program while transferring the administration,
control, and compliance oversight of all aspects and components of
the Texas Medicaid program from the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services in Washington to the State of Texas; and, be it
further
RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.
* * * * *