In the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas, 1 in 3 people already lacking health insurance. This should get worse while President Trump’s expense reductions take effect.
And Martínez, host:
The Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas has some of the country’s most insured rates. In some counties, one in three people have no health insurance, and this should get worse as President Trump’s expense reductions have touched. Millions of Americans are expected to lose their coverage in the next decade due to changes in federal policy. Sam Whitehead of our partner Kff Health News has more.
Sam Whitehead, byline: it’s in early June and flirt with 100 degrees when Maria Salgado rolls her backpack in the air -conditioned refuge of the Roma public library. In a small rear-room, she wobbles on a tour fan …
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Whitehead: … and takes out the tools in his job – laptop, scanner, printer.
Maria Salgado: In addition, we have, you know, the documents they need to fill out their request, so I have everything here.
Whitehead: Salgado is a community health worker, a promoter. It crosses the large Hispanic counties which hug the border of the southern United States and help people to register – and to keep – a law on affordable care and medical coverage of Medicaid. Today, she meets a man and his wife who are afraid of having missed her deadline for Renewal of Medicaid.
Salgado: And we have examined his account, but it is not time to renew. It is good until November this year.
Whitehead: Salgado says that a lot of people in this low -part community need this type of help, and more could soon. President Trump’s budget law will considerably reduce expenses to Medicaid and ACA, the programs that Republicans say they have become too important. The non -partisan Congress Budget Office claims that 10 million less Americans have health coverage over the next decade.
Sara Rosenbaum: You cannot disass up so many people and not have, in many communities, just a collapse of the health care system.
Whitehead: Sara Rosenbaum is a retired health policy expert from George Washington University. A growing set of research shows that having health insurance makes you healthier. Rosenbaum says that even more people could lose coverage if the federal aid intended to pay the ACA plans expires at the end of the year.
Rosenbaum: will start losing their cover very quickly.
Whitehead: Growing up in the Rio Grande valley, sometimes Chris Casso’s family could afford insurance. Sometimes they couldn’t. Now she’s a doctor there. Casso says that it is common for its patients with avoidable conditions such as diabetes to delay treatment until they develop complications such as kidney disease.
Chris Casso: Sometimes it’s heartbreaking, you know, personally. I mean – Sorry. Become a little emotional?
Whitehead: Her sister died at the age of 45. Casso says that she could not afford insurance and that she could not manage her diabetes and heart disease. The casso worries, the more could face this spell.
Casso: Our economy will suffer. Our population will suffer. It will be devastating.
Whitehead: eat more costs for people who cannot pay to express many hospital budgets. At the same time, the budget law reduces federal financial programs on which many rural hospitals have learned.
Quang NGO: We often say that it is a bit like death by a thousand cuts, do you know?
Whitehead: Quang NGO works with the Rural Hospital Association of Texas. Some facilities, he says, may not do so.
Unidentified person: it has already been seen.
Whitehead: Star County Memorial Hospital is just at the bottom of the street of a brand new McDonald’s. The cross-cut wall beyond the journey. It is at the end of the afternoon, and each bed in this emergency room is full. Dr. Jake Margo Jr. says traffic resumes here when the nearby health clinics are closed for the day.
Jake Margo Jr: So they all come here, and we are the only ones.
Whitehead: They take all the arrivals. Federal law says that if hospitals wish to participate in Medicare, their emergency rooms must stabilize all those looking for care – insured or not.
Margo: You know, we are very effective, and yet, when you are overwhelmed, when you are overwhelmed, there are few things you can do.
Whitehead: Margo says that resources like bed space and the attention of its staff can only extend until now before patients are starting to notice. In the Rio Grande Valley, I am Sam Whitehead.
Martínez: Sam is with our partner Kff Health News.
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