County Attorney and Texas Border Coalition will request the Texas legislature to solve serious health care problems along the border
Members
of the Texas Border Coalition approved this morning in San Antonio the 2007-2008 Border Health
Legislative Agenda drafted by El Paso County Attorney José R. Rodríguez, as
Chair of the TBC's Border Health Committee.
The
legislative agenda includes dozens of recommendations for solving the most
serious health care problems along the Texas/Mexico border. A document that
includes all the recommendations will be presented to the Texas Governor and leaders of the legislature
during a special meeting in December.
The
2007-2008 Border Health Legislative Agenda requests the State to restore CHIP
and Medicaid funding to the levels that existed in 2003, prior to the cuts
approved by the State Legislature. It also asks the legislature to do away with
the changes implemented the same year that make it difficult for citizens to
receive services, like the 90-day waiting period for new CHIP enrollments and
the reduction of the coverage period from 12 months to six.
To
solve the shortage of health care professionals in the border area, the
legislative agenda asks, among other things, to increase the number of
guaranteed admissions of border applicants to state supported medical schools,
to provide scholarships to financially disadvantaged border students, and to
fix the Medicaid and CHIP reimbursement rate disparities.
"The
shortage of doctors and nurses in the border area is in reality a serious
problem of access to health care. In most cases, patients need to wait weeks to
see a doctor, and frequently they have to go to other cities to consult a
specialist. Border residents have the most limited health care services in the
state of Texas, and to a certain extent, the problem exists because the
Medicaid and CHIP reimbursement rates in the border area are much lower than in
the rest of the state," said County Attorney José Rodríguez.
With
regard to mental health crisis services, the agenda calls for the legislature
to appropriate $222.13 million dollars per biennium as recommended by DSHS
Crisis Services Redesign Committee. The proposed agenda also calls for the
creation of a housing program for the mentally ill.
"With its
current funding, the Department of State Health Services has only been able to serve
about 28% of the adults and children with serious mental problems in the state
of Texas. The
mental health crisis is even worse in the border area, because those
communities lack the resources and health care institutions to close the gap in
services not offered by the state. As a result, in border communities like El
Paso, most mental patients are not receiving the appropriate services, and many
end up in the emergency rooms of local hospitals or in jail after suffering a
mental crisis," Rodríguez explained.
The
Texas Border Coalition is comprised of mayors, county judges, and Chambers of
Commerce from all the communities along the Texas/Mexico border, from El Paso to Brownsville.
Its mission is to make legislative recommendations to help the Texas border region grow
and prosper economically. The current Chairman of the Coalition is Eagle Pass
Mayor Chad Foster.
WHO: Texas
Border Coalition
WHAT: Border
Health Legislative Agenda
WHEN: Monday October 23, 2006 at 9:00 AM
WHERE: IBC Bank Community
Suite (5th Floor)
130 E. Travis Street, Suite 300
San Antonio, TX
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Health Legislative Agenda Press Release.pdf
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