Texans Flock To Buy Insurance Through Obamacare

(The image above was found at the Burnt Orange Report.)

It's no secret that Texas is a very red state, and the Republican leaders in Texas have been in the forefront of those who claim that it's citizens don't have a right to health care. For these Republican leaders, health care is a product to be sold to those who can afford to buy it -- and if you can't afford it, then you'll just have to die (because the state is not going to help you get life-saving health care).

That may sound harsh, but it's true. The Republican leaders in Texas don't want to recognize health care as a right, because if they did they might have to tax rich people and corporations to provide that health care to those who cannot afford it -- and taxing the rich and the corporations is not something Texas Republicans are willing to do. Padding the bank accounts of the rich and the corporations is far more important to Texas Republican officials than saving the lives of Texas citizens.

So it shouldn't have surprised anyone that Texas Republicans (both on the state level and those sent to Washington) fought against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) tooth and nail, and when it passed they filed suit in court to stop its implementation (and carried that suit all the way to the Supreme Court). And even after they lost, and Obamacare became law, they urged citizens to not buy insurance (so the law would fail). Once again, they didn't care that they were putting lives in danger -- because they had a political point to make, and for them, that was more important.

Fortunately, the citizens of Texas ignored their hard-hearted pleas to not buy insurance -- and they purchased more policies through the Obamacare federal exchange than was expected. The CBO had predicted that 629,000 private insurance policies would be sold in Texas, but the actual figure turned out to be about 733,000 (significantly more policies purchased than expected).

It turns out that Texans were not about to pass up the chance to buy affordable health insurance just to prove a point for the Republican officials. About 80% of that 733,000 qualified for subsidies under Obamacare to help them buy their insurance -- and the others were able to take advantage of the lower premium prices brought about by more healthy people purchasing insurance (and yes, 30% of those purchasing insurance were healthy young people between the ages of 18 and 34). Blue Cross added that they had sold about 150,000 additional policies in Texas outside the federal exchange, and that's only one company. It is likely that the number of new private insurance policies has exceeded a million.

That's good, but we could have done much better here in Texas. Our state government has refused to expand Medicaid -- and that leaves at least 1.5 million people that cannot get health care (because they do not qualify for Medicaid under Texas' stringent law, but don't make enough money to qualify for a federal subsidy to help them buy insurance). In other words, Texas (which has the highest percentage of uninsured people in the nation) could have reduced the number of uninsured by nearly 3 million -- the the Republican leaders chose not to allow that.

All Texans should be ashamed of their elected GOP leaders, who put politics above saving lives. How can any decent person not believe all citizens should have a right to good health care?