HOUSTON, July 29, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Medicaid was signed into law on July 30, 1965. Forty years later it is providing 2.7 million Texas residents -- more than half of them children -- with access to life saving and life preserving health care. Texas Children's Hospital joins other health care providers, Medicaid recipients and community leaders in recognizing the program's success in providing health coverage to millions of children and in calling on our elected officials to protect and reform the Medicaid program.
"We all know someone who has benefited from Medicaid: a grandparent receiving long-term nursing home care, a single parent who was laid off and depends on Medicaid for her child, or a disabled neighbor who could never afford adequate private coverage," said Mark A. Wallace, president and chief executive officer of Texas Children's Hospital. "We all benefit when people get basic health care and are able to work and raise healthy families. This is why it's critical that our state and federal leaders work to ensure that Medicaid remains strong and effective, providing health care for our most vulnerable children and families."
Under the budget plan Congress approved this spring, by mid-September the House and Senate committees that oversee Medicaid are required to make $10 billion in program cuts for the next five years. Texas stands to lose $600 million if these cuts are made to Medicaid.
Why does Medicaid matter?
Medicaid is the nation's largest health care payer for children and vital to Texas and local economies. In Texas, Medicaid covers one in three children. In Harris County, 303, 582 children are enrolled in Medicaid.
-- Medicaid is a safety net program. Medicaid provides coverage
not only for low-income working families, but also for those
families who have suffered a family catastrophe or illness or
cannot afford private health coverage. When a child is diagnosed
with a life-threatening illness and has to undergo several medical
procedures, Medicaid lifts the burden of cost and stress from a
family already struggling with a difficult situation.
-- Medicaid provides critical benefits. Quality health care allows
children to remain healthy, providing services such as well-child
checkups, immunizations, and dental and vision care. Children need
these benefits to remain physically and mentally fit. Cutting
Medicaid funds would mean more children end up in already crowded
hospital emergency rooms instead of doctors' offices.
-- Medicaid provides necessary funding. Medicaid invests in training
doctors and nurses, as well as core community services. It also
covers some of the cost of indigent care that would otherwise be
absorbed by taxpayers.
-- Medicaid is essential to children's hospitals. The five members
of the Children's Hospitals of Texas (CHAT) devote, on average,
more than 55 percent of their care to children assisted by
Medicaid. At Texas Children's Hospital, Medicaid accounts for 45
percent of patient care revenue. Medicaid funding enables Texas
Children's to take care of all children.
About Texas Children's Hospital
As one of the nation's largest pediatric hospitals, Texas Children's is renowned for its expertise and breakthrough development in the treatment of cancer, premature infants, cardiogenic disorders, diabetes, asthma, HIV/AIDS and attention-related disorders. Since opening its doors in 1954, the Texas Children's Hospital Integrated Delivery System (IDS) has cared for more than 1 million children from every corner of the world, and has more than 2 million patient encounters a year. Internationally recognized, the hospital is ranked in the top four among children's hospitals by both Child magazine and U.S. News and World Report.