{"id":10131,"date":"2019-04-19T17:49:59","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T17:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10131"},"modified":"2019-04-19T17:49:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T17:49:59","slug":"poll-texans-want-government-involved-in-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10131","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Texans Want Government Involved in Health Care"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An Episcopal Health Foundation poll found that a majority of Texans want government to take a hand in making the health-care system work. Photo: Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

HOUSTON \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0An overwhelming majority of Texans believe that state government needs to take a major role in making the health-care system work well.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0recent polling by the Episcopal Health Foundation<\/a>, at least eight of 10 Texans want the government to play a significant role in a functioning health-care system.<\/p>\n

Brian Sasser, chief communications officer with the Episcopal Health Foundation says in a recent poll, Texans prioritized health-care issues second only to increased spending on public education.<\/p>\n

\u201cA majority of Texans believe that their government has a role in making sure the health-care system works,\u201d says Sasser. \u201cLowering the price of prescription drugs, lowering health-care costs and increasing access to health insurance are kind of recurring themes with what the health priorities for the Legislature should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sasser says more than half of the Texans polled believe lawmakers should increase access to health insurance, work to lower the overall cost of health care, increase funding for mental-health programs, and reduce the number of women who die from childbirth.<\/p>\n

A majority say Texas is not doing enough to provide low-income adults with access to health care, specifically calling for the state to expand access to Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Sasser says that despite the ongoing uncertainty, more than 1 million Texans enrolled in the Affordable Care Act for health insurance in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s clear about this is what\u2019s at stake if the Affordable Care Act was to go away in Texas,\u201d says Sasser. \u201cAnd that\u2019s that 1 million people who currently use that for their health insurance would have to look for other options or most likely have no other options.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds that Texans responded strongly when asked about keeping protections for people with pre-existing condition in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a big number; 88% of folks that we polled said that they believe that pre-existing conditions should be covered,\u201d says Sasser. \u201cIt kind of went across political and demographics and income levels and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Episcopal Health Foundation funds programs and research to improve the health of residents in 57 counties in central, east and southeast Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson HOUSTON \u2013\u00a0An overwhelming majority of Texans believe that state government needs to take a major role in making the health-care system work well. According to\u00a0recent polling by the Episcopal Health Foundation, at least eight of 10 Texans want the government to play a significant role in a functioning health-care system. Brian Sasser, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10133,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10131\/revisions\/10133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}