I’m sure everyone in this town has heard of the Central Texas Health Ratification Proposition 1 by now. Every time I turn on the radio, I hear something about it. With audio and visual assault for and against the proposition, what are we to make of it?
The first response I heard, and the response I seem to be hearing more often than not is something akin to “No more taxes!” or “The liberals want to steal my money!” or some other Texas-style-no-taxes-ever! or I-got-mine-already-so-screw-the-rest-of-you! crowing. Quit frankly, I find this disappointing. When I first heard about this, I thought, “finally, we can get some decent health care in Austin!” Improved medical care is a good thing. Medical schools are not only good, but necessary for the advancement of medicine and the training of good physicians. This seems like a no brainer to me.
What does prop 1 give us? In a nutshell,
1) Prop 1 will open up a medical school at UT that will educate and train doctors in Austin. While doctors are in no way obligated to stay in the same area that they completed their residency in they tend to do just that. This means more access to doctors for everyone in Austin. More specialists. More GPs. Quicker turnaround times. Less waiting. Better, more personalized care.
2) It will allow the establishment for clinics for the uninsured to receive health care. (I think I just heard someone crow in outrage.) How dare I suggest their money go to some migrant worker, or illegal!? Everyone worth their salt in Austin can afford health insurance (but somehow can’t afford a negligible tax raise). Right? Wrong. Texas is the most uninsured state in the union. According to the stats, 1 in every 3 people you know is likely uninsured. And every single one of them will need health care sometime. Right now, their course of action is to wait until they are in an emergency situation to receive medical treatment at an emergency facility. The rates for emergency medicine is astronomically higher than preventative, scheduled treatment. When they can’t pay, the hospital doesn’t just write that off. They pass it off on those who can pay. Ever wonder why those staples in your leg cost $84 dollars a piece? Or why that gauze was $9 per dressing? Now you know! And the insurance company wont just eat those inflated prices either. All of us who can afford insurance now have jacked up premiums to help the insurance companies recoup their expenses. So the net effect of having clinics for the uninsured? Less unpaid medical bills for hospitals. Less markup on your medical care. Lower premiums. Yes, this is a non fictional version of trickle down economics.
3) It would create 15,000 new jobs in Austin. How? Well, with more doctors practicing we will need more supporting staff, for starters. We will encourage a boom in Austin’s medical tech economy. Not to mention clinic workers and all of their supporting staff. The projected increase is about 2 billion dollars of economic activity. Lowering unemployment in Austin. This seems pretty self explanatory.
4) It would enable us to receive 129 million a year in matching federal funds. This is a biggie. This is, in essence, money injected straight into the medical field in Austin that the people of Austin don’t even have to pay for. In fact, Austinites only have to pay 10% of the entire bill. Seton, UT, US government fund matching, and a few others will be footing 90% of the bill. That is a hell of an ROI if you ask me.
5) This one is obvious, but I feel that it needs to be said. DECENT HEALTH CARE IN AUSTIN. Being a person, in a world, I have a grandmother. I remember when my grandmother had heart issues, we wanted to get her the best care we could afford. So we took her to Scott and White. In Temple. I can’t tell you how backwards it felt that we were leaving the educated center of Texas, in order to go to Temple, Texas. There were better people in Dallas, but my grandmother refused to have us drive her that far. Gas alone was much more than 9 dollars a trip. A trip we made sometimes up to 6 times a month. On top of that, I can’t imagine a car trip to and from Dallas or Houston with a loved one puking from a wonderfully potent combination of car sickness and chemotherapy.
But what will be giving up? $9.00 a month. Yes, that’s it. To fund this, Austin (and the surrounding area) residents who own property would have to pay an additional 9.00 a month average of increased property taxes. (Austin, I would like to add, has by far the lowest property tax of all 5 of the largest cities in Texas.) This isn’t a tax leveled against lower income residents or students who can’t afford to own their own homes. No, this tax increase would be on people who are generally well enough to do that they own on average a $214,000 home in Austin. While I am definitely not saying that everyone who owns a house in Austin is well to do, I am saying that people have the cash flow to pay for a mortgage can spare 9 dollars a month. They might have to skip two blended venti carmel macchiatos to hit this goal, but I have faith in them. I can hit 9 dollars at Chipotle if I’m feeling frisky and opt for a heaping scoop of guacamole on forearm sized burrito. I would be ok (and probably better off just by) giving up a loaded burrito every month in order to be granted to better local health care.
I won’t tell anyone how to vote. That isn’t my place, but personally I would rather be shorted $9.00 a month while having ample medical staff around me when I need it. In my opinion, that extra $9.00 a month is going to be poor compensation when we are forced into driving our loved ones or ourselves to Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio in order to receive proper medical treatment. But, really, how can prop 1 compete with two super sonic bacon double cheeseburgers pried from our starving mouths every single month?
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