AUSTIN, Texas — Connie Bunch is a single mother of two. Her youngest, Aiden, is just 15 months old. Her daughter Brooklyn is 10 and has cerebral palsy. She requires frequent care, and Bunch is often taking her to doctor’s appointments far from home. Because of that, she doesn’t work.
“You figure it out. You do what you have to do,” she said. “You tough it out. Those are my kids. I love them.”
Before the pandemic, Bunch didn’t have insurance. But when she got pregnant with Aiden last year, she enrolled in Medicaid.
“Anybody that was on Medicaid March 2020 is still on Medicaid. Anybody that has come onto Medicaid since March 2020 is still on Medicaid,” said Diana Forester, the director of health policy at Texans Care for Children. “What that means for Texas is we have about 5.9 million people on Medicaid right now.”
A pandemic-era federal health order allowed new moms to stay enrolled in Medicaid longer than two months, which is Texas’ coverage limit. The Legislature passed a bill last session to extend Medicaid coverage from two to six months, but the federal government has not approved it yet. Now, Rep. Toni Rose, D-Dallas, is trying to increase the length of coverage to one year. She plans to go through a different application process, so it’s not held up again.
“Texas needs to increase access to comprehensive services during pregnancy by facilitating continuity of care during pregnancy [and] the year after pregnancy,” Rep. Rose said at a committee hearing Thursday.
“I think it continues to be an easy way to support moms in that really crucial first year of life,” Forester said. “Those babies have so many milestones, and they need that constant care. And the last thing you want is moms ending up in the ER because they don’t have health coverage to treat something that’s totally preventable. And so I think this is a really easy way to make sure our moms are able to care for themselves, so that they can care for their baby.”
House Bill 12 would cost the state about $150 million for the next biennium, per the fiscal note.
“I would just say that is a reasonable cost for the state to pay to ensure that these moms have access to health care,” Forester said. “I mean, even if this bill doesn’t pass, those moms might not be getting the preventative care they need or treating those conditions. And so they’re waiting until it becomes an emergency, and they end up in the ER. And if they don’t have insurance, the state pays for that in the ‘uncompensated care.’ So we’re paying for it one way or another. This would just be an easier way to do it.”
Per the federal government’s health care website, uncompensated care is “health care or services provided by hospitals or health care providers that don’t get reimbursed. Often uncompensated care arises when people don’t have insurance and cannot afford to pay the cost of care.”
With extended Medicaid coverage, Bunch could continue going to the doctor after a traumatic delivery, and she discovered many health issues that had been ignored for years, like high-blood pressure and diabetes. She also went to the emergency room when something didn’t feel right. A doctor discovered aneurysms.
“Untreated… that could kill me. And I wouldn’t have known, because I didn’t feel comfortable going to the ER,” she said. “People like me, we go untreated because we don’t want to go to the hospital and get stuck with a $4,000 bill. And so I needed that insurance.”
Bunch is expecting to get kicked off Medicaid in April because the Biden administration recently announced it is ending the COVID emergency declarations. That means for the first time in three years, the state will begin taking Texans off Medicaid. For Bunch, that’s scary. She has a surgery scheduled for March 28.
“I have no idea what I’m going to do for post-op care,” she said. “I cannot afford to pay for it out of pocket just yet.”
Bunch said having insurance was lifesaving. She hopes House Bill 12 passes so other new moms can have the support she did.
“I’m still able to get all of my medications, my surgeries, everything that I need right now. Not sure what I’m going to do when it’s over,” she said.