The Texas Public Policy Foundation applauded the recently released package of health care reforms in the Texas House that will significantly lower costs, improve health care outcomes, put patients in charge of health care decisions, and make improvements to Medicaid. The group of individual bills rolled out by Speaker of the House Dade Phelan was released with bipartisan support and encompasses a broad range of issues from maternal mortality and brain health to telehealth and prescription drug costs. 

TPPF’s Right on Health Care Director David Balat released the following statement: 

“The ‘Healthy Families, Healthy Texas’ plan in the House highlights several critical reforms to reduce health care costs, empower patients, help low-income Texans, and get life-saving treatments, like vaccines, to vulnerable populations.  The provision to require price transparency, HB 2487 from Rep. Oliverson, is a game-changer that will end the pernicious practice of surprise billing and inconsistent, arbitrary pricing that threatens so many Texans financially. Expanding telehealth will make permanent the new and safer options afforded to millions during the onset of the pandemic.  And the plan finally addresses ways to improve Medicaid for hundreds of thousands of children, seniors, and disabled patients instead of continually pouring dollar after dollar into an ineffective and struggling program. Most of all, the plan forges a new bipartisan path for reforming our health care system instead of treading over the same old ground on government-run health care. TPPF looks forward to working with members of the House on these and other provisions to improve health outcomes for all Texans.” 

The Details: 

  • ‘Healthy Families, Healthy Texas’ is a package of a dozen individual bills. 
  • Proposals such as HB 4, HB 5, and HB 290 have significant bipartisan support and several of the bills have already been voted out of their respective committees. 
  • The package includes several reforms to help low-income Texans, such as improving Medicaid coverage for mothers and children, reducing drug prices for the uninsured, and expanding telehealth to rural and underserved areas.