08.13.08
Cornyn’s Priorities On Health Care - Protect The Insurance Corporations
This is just plain sad, Senator says the state is a model for the nation, despite having so many without insurance.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, representing the state with the highest share of population without health insurance, said Tuesday that Texas is a national model for improving access to health care because it limited lawsuits against doctors.
Voter approval in 2003 of Proposition 12, which limited damage awards against doctors in malpractice cases, led to lower malpractice insurance rates, the senator said. In turn, more Texas doctors stayed in the medical field and others flocked to the state from elsewhere, the Republican said.
“We have created greater access to quality health care in Texas,” he told the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club, a GOP group. “How did we do it? Well, we passed Proposition 12.
“So, you have to understand what I mean when I say I want to make Washington, D.C., and the rest of our country more like Texas (because), frankly, we know the policies that actually work.”
Oh we understand! That’s amazing for just how far out of touch that statement is. Texas ranks 48th in health care quality and efficiency.
On the Commonwealth Fund’s State Scorecard “avoidable health costs†dimension – a measure that speaks to efficiency within the health care system – Texas ranked 48th overall. Texas came up amongst three other states (Maryland, Nevada and Louisiana) with the highest proportion of Medicare patients readmitted to the hospital within 30 days, a finding that the study shows “could be a key indicator of underlying care patterns that increase costs.â€[1] In fact, total annual Medicare costs in the five states with the highest 30-day readmissions (Texas included) have average Medicare costs 38 percent higher than those states with the lowest readmission rates.[2] Texas also reappeared amongst the states with the highest rates of admission and readmission among nursing home residents.[3]
And according to Heatlh Care For All Texas, 1 in 4 Texans are without insurance. In the article Democrat Rick Noriega reminds us just how radical Cornyn and the Texas GOP’s views are on health care:
Democratic challenger Rick Noriega, a state legislator from Houston, criticized Cornyn then for opposing the measure, which was favored by Texas’ other senator, Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.
“He is one of 18 Republicans who voted against Texas children,” Noriega said.
Cornyn said Tuesday that he was against the bill because some states that administer CHIP wanted to expand it to adults and middle-class families — and that the priority should be on enlisting children who already were eligible.
The House couldn’t override President Bush’s veto of the bill.
In Cornyn’s world even though 25% of Texans are without health care, and the system is extremely inefficient, the system is just fine because insurance corporations aren’t being sued. Texans must realize that with a statement like this Cornyn is standing up for his true constituency. The insurance lobby that donates to his campaign, not the people of Texas. It’s time for a change.