Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst says the Senate has no plans to expand Medicaid to insure more people.
The Obama Administration has offered states funding for Medicaid expansion. Dewhurst said he opposes this measure.
Dewhurst highlights news legislation designed to improve care for the elderly, children and the disabled.
“We still have an obligation I believe to help people who truly, truly cannot help themselves,” Dewhurst said. “And so we’re going to have to focus, and that’s what Senator Nelson and I have been working on for a number of different sessions, free market reforms to Medicaid and to healthcare, so we can provide healthcare more efficiently and we can fight and root out fraud and abuse in Medicaid.”
Dewhurst and Republican Senator Jane Nelson, of Flower Mound, unveiled Senate Bills 7 and 8 Wednesday.
Nelson is chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and says these bills will expose and prevent Medicaid abuse. Nelson says the state lost $6 billion to fraud and waste from 2004 to 2011.
“We cannot afford to be losing a single dollar, let alone that amount. When you defraud the system, you are stealing from the taxpayers, from children, from the poor and elderly and Texans with disabilities, those Lieutenant Governor talked about, who are truly in need. It is a crime against our most vulnerable citizens,” Nelson said.
Nelson, of Flower Mound, is chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and says these bills will more effectively punish those who are cheating the system.
