Common Ground

I am happy to have found something on which to agree with the Eagle. On Sunday they had a piece from Nancy Dickey http://www.theeagle.com/stories/052007/opinions_20070520021.php

Dickey explains,

“…the Lone Star State has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to providing affordable health coverage for its people. Statistics show that Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the nation. More than 5.59 million Texans - nearly 25 percent of our total population - lack basic health coverage. That's nothing to brag about.

In 2003, with an eye toward improving those statistics, the Texas Health Institute - an independent, nonpartisan think tank working to improve the health of Texans - launched the "Shared Vision for Healthcare in Texas" project. I was privileged to serve as a panel member for the institute's "Shared Vision" project.”

I am happy to have found something on which to agree with the Eagle. On Sunday they had a piece from Nancy Dickey http://www.theeagle.com/stories/052007/opinions_20070520021.php

Dickey explains,

“…the Lone Star State has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to providing affordable health coverage for its people. Statistics show that Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the nation. More than 5.59 million Texans - nearly 25 percent of our total population - lack basic health coverage. That's nothing to brag about.

In 2003, with an eye toward improving those statistics, the Texas Health Institute - an independent, nonpartisan think tank working to improve the health of Texans - launched the "Shared Vision for Healthcare in Texas" project. I was privileged to serve as a panel member for the institute's "Shared Vision" project.”

She goes on to explain how the ambitions of the Shared Visions project would cost the state 1.6 billion and bring in 1.7 billion in additional federal funding.

Sadly, Texas has proven itself immune from such logic as taking federal money to insure its people, including children. Texas removed children from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) a federally funded program.

The Eagle also backed up Dickey’s article with an us-too sort of editorial of their own (http://www.theeagle.com/stories/052007/opinions_20070520018.php). These pieces ask for support of pending legislation. I would encourage the Eagle to look into why Texas has been guilty of the least compassionate kind of conservativism when it comes to making sure that our citizens are well cared for. Why have insurance lobbyists been able to write the rules that govern their industry?

There is a lot to this; and it is not just health insurance either. Why do we not require Workers Compensation for all Texas workers? Because the state fails to insure the safety of its workers, we have some of the highest Worker’s Comp rates in the country. There are many people in Texas who are not insured against accidents in the work place. In my own business, most of my competition have uninsured workers. This is a significant reduction in their overhead and a significant liability for the people that they do work for.