The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Healthy Texas Initiative announced its legislative agenda for the 90th Texas Legislative Session, centered on restoring transparency, competition, and patient control across the health care system while removing longstanding barriers to affordable medication access. Texans deserve clear prices, real choices, and a health care system that works for patients, not bureaucracies, monopolies, or middlemen.
“Health care is a case study in the negative consequences of market consolidation, anti-competitive practices, and government interference,” said TPPF Senior Fellow Dr. Cliff Porter. “Despite the United States offering some of the best medical care in the world, costs continue to rise at unsustainable rates, patient options are increasingly limited, and outcomes too often fail to justify the expense.”
“True health care costs are routinely hidden from patients, access is obscured by complex rules and opaque pricing, and financial decision-making has been removed from individuals and families. The result is a system that discourages competition, rewards inefficiency, and leaves Texans paying more for less,” Porter added.
Drug costs remain one of the fastest-growing drivers of overall health care spending and an increasingly significant barrier to better health. Direct access to drugs will bypass complex, opaque systems controlled by middlemen and the regulatory distortions that inflate prices, restrict access, and, in many cases, worsen health by delaying or denying necessary medications.
Texas and other states have already established proven policy models that provide a blueprint for reform. These reforms can deliver immediate price relief for patients while creating long-term structural improvements that expand access, increase competition, and improve medical care.
“Texas has the ability—and the responsibility—to lead the nation toward a health care system that is transparent, competitive, and centered on patients,” said HTI Campaign Director Caroline Welton. “By restoring market forces and empowering individuals, lawmakers can make high-quality, affordable health care a reality for all Texans.”
“The Texas Public Policy Foundation looks forward to working with lawmakers during the 90th Legislative Session to advance reforms that restore transparency, remove barriers to care, and put Texans back in control of their health care decisions,” she added.
TPPF’s Legislative Action Agenda for Healthcare includes:
Transparent Healthcare: Create transparent choices for patients and healthcare professionals to restore trust in medicine. Texas can break free from monopolies, restore individual control over our healthcare, allow catastrophic plans again, expand HSA’s, and ultimately “make your doctor be your doctor again.”
Removing Medication Access Barriers: Direct access to drugs at a fraction of the cost, bypassing monopolistic restrictions, reforming prior authorization and step therapy, and extending right to try.
Patient Health Data Privacy: Pushes for patient ownership and access to health data in Texas, potentially codifying federal ONC/CMS rules.
Make Schools Healthy Again: Improve school food programs and contracting. Add fitness standards to school performance metrics. Improving the health of Texas starts with schools.
Coverage at Conception (Pregnancy as a Qualifying Life Event): Make conception a qualifying life event for health insurance enrollment to ensure prenatal care access and align Texas insurance rules with its pro-life laws.
Texas is at a healthcare crossroads: TPPF’s Liberty Action Agenda will lead transformational reform and restore accessible affordable, quality healthcare.
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