Texas Lawmakers Begin Spirited Debate Over Budget
Lawmakers still have months to determine the gory details of the shrinking Texas budget. But as House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, laid out the first grim round of proposed cuts on Wednesday — aimed at balancing the budget without new taxes or tapping the Rainy Day Fund — even some of his Republican colleagues couldn't stifle their objections. House Democrats went a step further, calling the cuts "akin to asking an anorexic person to lose more weight."
Pitts didn't sugarcoat the proposed cuts, which strike a potentially devastating blow to public education and health care, eliminate 9,000 ...
Comments (2)
pragmaticus
Cutting Medicaid reimbursement may create an initial cascading of savings as fewer doctors will be willing to accept Medicaid. So, I'd expect fewer Medicaid patient encounters and submissions for reimbursement. Such savings may be lost on the back-end, though, through expensive hospital admissions needed for deterioriated conditions due to diminished access to care.
And so long as Texas is OK with expanding its existing shunt of the severely mentally ill into the criminal justice system, cutting MH services further shouldn't be a problem. However, the victims of the crimes required to access those correctional/forensic MH services might object.
Marcus mdcunningham
There seems to be a lot of backloading when it comes to the budget. By not investing in things like education, healthcare and mental health (all of which are completely necessary in my mind) any savings to be had will be offset by the lack of a competitive population.