Health Care
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What are we doing as a state to address childhood obesity? And what are our elected leaders doing about a challenge that is making too many Texas kids miss out on a healthy start? This report by Texans Care for Children and Methodist Healthcare Ministries looks back at the actions of the most recent Texas legislature--where our state moved forward, where we held the line, and where Texas retreated--in efforts to tip the scales toward a healthier future. We also offer what Texas can do next, so children and communities have what they need for a healthier life.
This factsheet projects when different portions of the Health Care Reform bill will take place, and what benefits they will have for Texans.
This report details what Health Care Reform will mean for different specific demographics, including seniors, the uninsured, those with pre-existing conditions, young adults, the health care workforce, small businesses, community health centers, and Latinos.
This report from Texans Care for Children, Ensuring the Child Welfare System Works for All Texas Children, discusses how disparate treatment exists in some form for all children in Child Protective Services. However, children of color are involved in the child welfare system at higher levels than white children partially because, once they enter the system, they get treated differently. This report advocates efforts to continue evaluation to ensure that child wellbeing is safeguarded and that progress continues to be made on reducing disproportionality.
This report from Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc., Health Care and Texas: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going discusses their budget for 2011 and the programs and services they provide. These include parenting programs, health education, school based health centers, clinical services, etc. The rest of the report discusses determinants of health, high cost of care, access to care, the uninsured, and the need for health care reform,
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, The Texas Pregnancy Care Network: A Taxpayer-Funded Failure, discusses the ineffectiveness of the TCPN and the cost of the program to the state of Texas. The main clinics associated with the TCPN, crisis pregnancy centers, often violate federal laws, but are not bound by confidentiality requirements or any oversight. Money given to the TCPN would be more efficiently spent in other programs that would prevent unwanted pregnancies.
This report from Methodist Healthcare MInistries, Crisis Point: Mental Health Workforce Shortages in Texas discusses the health care crisis in Texas. It notes how with a growing and aging population with different ethnicity requires more complex care. These changes in care create a need for more health care professionals, however there is still an ever-growing demand for service, causing a larger health care workforce crisis.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Nearly all of Texas' Anti-Abortion Subcontractors are Christian Groups, discusses Texas' distribution of money for its Texas Alternatives to Abortions Services Program to primarily religious nonprofit organizations. It details the main recipients of the 11.7 million dollars and how the money was spent. The report concludes that the subtractors spent most of their money on counseling services.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, The Texas "Alternatives to Abortion" Program: Bad Health Policy, Bad Fiscal Policy, discusses the Texas Care Protection Network's failure to meet its goals and failure to meet the needs of women in Texas. As part of the Alternatives to Abortion Program, the TCPN diverts funds from proven family planning clinics into crisis pregnancy centers, run primarily by volunteers and with few services. The TCPN has cost the state in federal grant money and taxpayers' money.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, NARAL Pro-Choice America Statement on Cuts to Family Planning Funding, discusses an anti-choice proposal to completely eliminate funding for a family planning program that will lead to millions of Americans losing access to contraception, cancer screenings, and other basic health care. Title X is the nation’s only program dedicated solely to family planning for low-income Americans. Nearly 4,600 health centers receive funding from Title X to provide non-abortion-related services like birth control and cancer screenings.
This report from Texans Care for Children, A Report on the Bottom Line: Conditions for Children and the Texas of Tomorrow, discusses issues such as child protection, family financial security, chiald and maternal health, children's mental wellbeing, and juvenile justice and how to solve the challenges each of these issues face.
This report from the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc., Policy Update: The Budget Control Act of 2011 discusses the U.S.’s approval of the debt-ceiling plan.The report lays out key dates and details in relation to the bill such as when spending caps begin.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, A Center of Controversy, discusses state-funded crisis pregnancy centers' (CPCs) use of religious rhetoric and anti-abortion material. Individual accounts and investigations by NARAL Pro-Choice Texas reveal violations of the information standard and/or religious promotion rule that federally-funded organizations must abide by. Clients, due to lack of transparency by CPCs, often enter clinics without knowledge of the services that the centers provide.
This report from Texas One Voice: A Collaborative for Health & Human Services, Mental Health in Texas: The Hidden Cost of Budget Cuts, discusses the consequences of lack of funding for mental health patients. It specifies the lack of facilities for individuals with mental illness; lack of treatment causes these individuals to seek the ER more often, to become homeless, and to receive treatment for their illness often as a result of being jailed. The report presents mental illness as a drain on the Texas economy.
This report from Texas One Voice: A Collaborative for Health & Human Services, HPD CCSI Program, discusses the Houston Police Department's program with dealing with mental illness, the Chronic Customer Stabilization Initiative (CCSI). The CCSI would monitor residents of Houston who were in contact with 911 services the most often. The program offered these residents referrals and monitored each case, greatly reducing hospitalization and police-resident interaction. Previously, Houston had depended on its Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) and CIRT (Crisis Intervention Respones Team).
This report from Texans Care for Children, The Case for Taxing Sugary Drinks in Texas, discusses how children disproportionately drink sugary drinks and are most sensitive to differences in price. The key to reducing child obesity in the state—and weight‐loss averaging five pounds per year per overweight child—is a penny‐per‐ounce tax on the drinks driving the problem.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, A Hidden Minefield at Pregnancy Centers, is an individual account of a visit to a crisis pregnancy center (CPC) and a Planned Parenthood clinic. The account notes the misleading medical information and anti-abortion language used within the CPCs, as well as CPCs' lack of transparency in regards to the services they provide. In contrast, the Planned Parenthood clinic is described as the only clinic in which the individual felt she was not pushed in any specific direction.
This report from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Transgender Discrimination Survey Report on Health and Health Care, discusses the discrimination faced by transgender and gender non-conforming people when accessing health care. Reported barriers to care deter this community from seeking and receiving quality health care. Date shows additional risk of discrimination for transgender and non-conforming people making their health care access and outcomes dramatically worse.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Advertising Practices of Crisis Pregnancy Centers Raise Concerns, discusses deceptive advertising practices by CPCs in order to attract and influence clients. The report details the experiences of women who visited these clinics, often funded by religious organizations, where staff members would attempt to influence clients. It was revealed that these clinics failed to offer abortions or birth control, and cities have passed ordinances ordering such clinics to advertise their choice not to provide these services.
This September 2010 brief from La Fe assesses the participation of Latinos in the Texas Quitline smoking cessation program and explores how improved access to the program could benefit the Latino community.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, The Abortion Battleground: Crisis Pregnancy Centers, discusses attempts to regulate crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) throughout the nation. CPCs often falsely advertise their services and once women enter the clinic, CPCs give their clients misleading information. Attempts to regulate CPCs' advertising have been largely met with failure.
This report from Texas One Voice: A Collaborative for Health & Human Services, Health Reform 101 Plus: Basics for Texas, discusses the Affordable Care Act's impact on the state of Texas. It details the overall costs for the state of Texas that results from insuring millions who were previously uninsured, as well as expanding coverage for those who are insured under federal programs such as Medicaid. The report also analyzes changes in individual responsibility and employer responsibility (including tax benefits for small businesses).
This report discusses what kinds of health and human service funding Texans could expect to get from the ARRA at the time of the report's release.
This report from Texans Care for Children, Treatment, Not Punishment: Untangling the Mental Health-Juvenile Justice Knot, discusses the number of youth, in Texas, with mental health dissabilities, which is approximately 1 in 5 children. Many families cannot afford treatment for these children, especially in Texas, which has the highest percentage in the nation of children with no health insurance at all. This report advocates a better promotion of this issue in order to improve health care services for children with mental health issues.
This factsheet celebrates the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act into law by showing how many uninsured Latinos will be helped by it.
This April 2010 report from La Fe shows the detrimental effects that smoking has on the health of Latinos in Texas, and advocates policies to alleviate these health risks.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, NARAL Pro-Choice America Statement on Rise in Teen Pregnancy Rate, discusses NARAL President Keenan’s statement in response to new data on the rise of national teen pregnancy rates. Keenan explains that the nation is facing an adolescent reproductive-health crisis regarding sexually transmitted diseases as well as pregnancies in teens before reaching the age of 20. Teens need accurate information to make responsible decisions.
This report from Texans Care for Children, Promoting Children's Social and Emotional Development, discusses how the first years of life represent a unique wnidow of opportunity to promote children's healthy socail and emotional development. A growing body of research concludes several public programs and policies focused on the earl years can be key in warding off problems later in life. Texas, however, has a track record of underivestment in the early years of children's lives. This report recommends several things to support positive child development and prevent child abuse such as, the use of standardized developmental screenings, fund the Early Childhood Intervention program, provide professional caregivers and teachers to appropriate training, and more.
This policy report, from La Fe Policy Research and Education Center, identifies health care reform perspectives and their potential impact on businesses.
This brief details the potential effects that health care reform proposals have on latino health and well being, from the perspective of small businesses.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Healthy Women, Healthy Families Coalition Formed to Collect Healthcare Stories from 2,000 Texas Women, discusses a statewide coalition to improve access to healthcare services for women and families across Texas. The coalition is made up of 15 Texas organizations which are launching a statewide survey to identify women’s health needs and priorities through personal stories. The coalition will bring the stories to the Capitol for the 81st Legislative Session to raise awareness about the state of women’s health in various regions across Texas.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Healthy Women, Healthy Families Releases Results of Year-Long Survey, discusses the healthcare needs of 758 women from 60 Texas counties surveyed over the course of a year. Women ranked the top five most urgently needed services: healthcare for families with little to no insurance, safe and affordable childcare, family planning options for women and teens, healthcare for elderly and disable women, and medically accurate sex education.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Taxpayer-funded Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Texas: deceiving Texas Women with your Tax Dollars, discusses the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, which has been inefficient in its use of taxpayers' money. The TCPN consolidated existing, unregulated clinics (crisis pregnancy centers or CPCs), which are not bound to provide adequate services for pregnant women. Additionally, the TCPN spends most of the money it receives from the federal and state governments on adminstrative costs. Overall, the TCPN is proven to divert funds from proven programs for pregnant women, into a program that is inefficient and unproven.
This report from Texans Care for Children, Children's Mental Health in Texas: Running a Diagnostic Test, discusses the unfortunate number of children who face unmet mental health needs, enad examines recent indicators of children' mental health in Texas. Topics include ensuring that children and emotionally and socially ready for school, access to professionals, investments in treatment, and support for best prcatices to support emotional and social health at different ages of a child's life. It ends with what Texas can do this month before the legistlative sessions ends in order to help these children.
This policy position paper from La Fe in April, 2009 shows its support for universal health insurance.
This brief details La Fe's position that the 81st Legislature should accept and optimize funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) to be used to improve health care in Texas.
This details the testimony of Juan H. Flores, Executive Director of La Fe, before the Texas Select Committee on Federal Stabilization Funds on March 21, 2009. He advocates expanding access through Medicaid/SCHIP buy-in programs, eliminating barriers and obstacles in Medicaid, improving continuity of care under Medicaid, and improving out reach and marketing sources.
This details the testimony of Juan H. Flores, Executive Director of La Fe, before the Texas House Human Services Committee on March 19, 2009. He advocates expanding access through Medicaid/SCHIP buy-in programs, eliminating barriers and obstacles in Medicaid, improving continuity of care under Medicaid, and improving out reach and marketing sources.
This report from Methodist Healthcare Ministries, Health Care Issues: Implications for Our Future discusses a demographic overview of Bexar County and Health Care. Regarding healthcare the report discusses the national health plan and employer sponsored health insurance. Lastly the report looks at the relationship between income and insurance, obesity, availability of fresh produce.
This policy position paper from La Fe in February, 2009, advocates health reform for Latinas addressing four main issues: health disparities, affordable health care, access to women's health/medical care, and culturally appropriate reproductive choices.
This report from Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Texas, Republicans on Choice, Family Planning, and Privacy, details various prominent Republican politicians' pro-choice perspectives, running counter to their party. The report quotes various politicians' views on abortion, family planning, and privacy.
This report from the Texas Watch Foundation, Manipulation of the Market: How the Insurance Industry Has Gamed All Three Branches of State Government, discusses how the insurance industry in Texas has successfully used all three branches of government to strip away protections for its consumers, keep rates high, and implement unfair rating and underwriting practices. The paper argues for a system that protects consumers with smart regulation and oversight instead of trusting insurance companies to self-manage through deregulation. The report details how the Department of Insurance - part of the executive branch - has passed rules that heavily favor insurers over consumers, allowing companies to severely reduce coverage available without lowering rates; simultaneously, the Texas Supreme Court has repeatedly chosen to interpret insurance laws as favoring the industry when the laws were intended to protect policyholders.
This is the testimony of Amy Casso, Senior Policy Analyst at La Fe, before the Senate State Affairs Committee on March 26, 2009. In it, she advocates SB 6, to expand health care coverage in Texas.
This details La Fe's legislative policy priorities regarding health care access for Latinos for the 2009 legislative session.
This policy analysis from La Fe evaluates the components of the HHSC Medicaid Reform Waiver 1115 proposal as of March 2008. The report identifies the proposal's challenges while gaining greater understanding of how the it will or will not address health disparities among low-income and racial/ethnic population groups.
Here in the United States, whether or not you have health insurance determines your access to health care. The ability to have health insurance provides access to basic health services such as preventative care, a primary care physician, and timely preventative health interventions. This study goes into detail on how even though US health insurance is paid for by government dollars, everyone pays but not everyone is covered.
This report from the Texas Watch Foundation, Patient Justice: Patients are Better Off in States Without Barriers to Justice, discusses and analyzes the claim that so-called tort "reform" corresponds to improvements in the healthcare system. The results of the research show the opposite to be the case: using data collected for a comprehensive state-by-state evaluation of healthcare by the non-profit, nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund, the analysis reveals that states without caps on medical malpractice lawsuits tend to have better healthcare than those with arbitrary limits. The study's data demonstrates the falsity of a major component used by special interests who desire to immunize wrongdoers from accountability by stripping patients of their legal rights.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Bush Puts another Anti-Birth-Control Activist in Charge of Family Planning, discusses President Bush’s choice to temporarily appoint Susan Orr, a right-wing activist as acting director of the federal office that oversees the nation’s family planning programs. NARAL President Nancy Keenan calls this yet another example of the President putting political ideology before women’s health. Furthermore, she states this as another example of Bush putting his far-right political base before women’s health.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, The 80th Session Maintains Status Quo for Women’s Health, discusses the 80th Legislative Session’s inability to pass any significant changes for women’s health in Texas. While no anti-choice measures were passed, no proactive measures to improve women’s health were passed either. HB 1842, the Texas Prevention First Act, however, did move further through the legislative process.
This report from NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Prevention First Solutions Urged from House Solutions, discusses public hearings of two Prevention First initiatives regarding HB 268 and HB 1842. These bills contain commonsense solutions to prevent unintended pregnancy
This report from the Texas Watch Foundation, The False Choice: Doctors or Accountability; The Real Impact of So-Called Tort "Reform" in Texas, discusses the idea that Texas voters were given a false choice in 2003: lose their doctors or lose access to their courts. The paper instead argues that consumers can, and should, have both strong legal protections as well as access to quality, affordable healthcare. The report explains that heated rhetoric and efforts to keep turnout low by manipulating the election date and ballot language were key in stripping away the right to legal accountability through the courts; even despite the reform, the report argues that rural and indigent areas still struggle to meet their health care needs, insurance companies continue long trends of overcharges, and families devasted by medical negligence have little recourse to holding perpetrators accountable.
This report from Methodist Healthcare Ministries, Access to Care: Latinos and The U.S. Economy discusses healthcare costs to the American people. The report then breaks down healthcare access in relation to ethnicity and trends amongst the different groups. The report then looks at factors related to insurance coverage, the state and national landscape, and how it impacts the average citizen.
This policy position paper from La Fe outlines its three priorities for health care: improving affordability, reducing health disparities and inequalities troubling low-income communities, and increasing accessibility of health care.
This report from Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Texas, Anti-Choice Claims About Abortion and Breast Cancer, discusses a connection made by pro-life advocates between abortion and breast cancer. It explains the connection between breast cancer and induced abortions, and refutes the connection with several studies that found no definite relationship between abortions and breast cancer. It also lists other risk factors for breast cancer.
This report from Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Texas, The Facts Speak Louder than "The Silent Scream", discusses the popular pro-choice film, The Silent Scream, and its numerous scientific inaccuracies. It details numerous claims in the film and refutes them with the testimony of various medical experts convened by Planned Parenthood.
