The Texas Tribune Festival hosted the conversations on “Public Health and the 87th Legislature” on September 14 with Rep. James Frank (R- Wichita Falls) and Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston).
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
HOUSE AGENDA
Corrie MacLaggan – Texas Tribune, Moderator
Q: COVID has shifted priorities and accented disparities, can you share about nursing homes concerns?
- Thompson – Sister was in a nursing home and she got COVID, spent 3 weeks in the hospital/tested negative and sent back to the home where she expired a few days later
- Thompson – Immune system of sister was almost depleted because of COVID
- Thompson – unable to visit sister during this time, would like to see if policies can help with visiting family in nursing homes
- Thompson – Also employees need personal care equipment and employees can be tested so they are not bringing in the virus to residents
- Frank – there has been a learning curve, thinks they will be working on visitation policy together
- Frank – must allow visitation and be sure have proper testing protocols in place to protect
- Frank – for many people this is the last 12 months of life regardless if COVID is there or not
- Frank – this has been the number one issue he has been hearing from constituents about
- Frank – need to acknowledge there is some risk but need to let patients see loved ones
Q: Should legislature have played more of role in response?
- Frank – Governor has done a fine job with vast majority of decisions but no leader should be without check and balances in place
- Thompson – Governor should have sought a bit more input from legislature, state is so vast and large so members may have heard from people the Governor did not
- Thompson – would have addressed nursing home processes differently, would have been able to help with more guidelines
- Frank – would have addressed nursing home processes differently, and agrees with Thompson’s remarks that lawmakers are spread across the state and their feedback would be helpful/it does matter
Q: Rep. Thompson, if Democrats take over the House, would you be a candidate for Speaker?
- Thompson – If Rep. Frank supports me
- Frank – If Democrats take over the House, then sure she will be a candidate
Q: Budget deficit, agencies are being asked to cut, is pandemic time to make cuts?
- Thompson – HHSC and health agencies always go underfunded anyway, cuts would impact critical programs and many have loss insurance and jobs
- Thompson – Hospitals will need to be reimbursed in some way or else they will be overloaded
- Thompson – need healthy people to work, so wrong area to take a 5% cut
- Frank – will need to look at spending money better, mistake is asking agencies to cut and many don’t look at own overhead, lawmakers should be asked about the cut
- Frank – need more money to provide the services but not the overhead of providing
- Frank – agencies usually cut from people instead of overhead, “almost intentionally” make it appear painful
Q: COVID has been deadlier in some populations, what does state need to do to address disparities?
- Thompson – need to study and do something about them, discusses area in Houston she is from and things in her area are built up to negatively impact her health
- Thompson – very few places to go and purchase healthy food, need to take disparities seriously
- Frank – all of us need to look at healthier behaviors , some positive things have come about such as the expansion of telemedicine and thinks we should continue to be able to push this out to as many people as possible
Q: Should relaxation of certain restrictions continue?
- Frank – absolutely, they should be looked at one by one and see if they were needed in the first place, telemedicine is key
- Thompson – Agrees on telemedicine and points out telehealth would give ability to see people with mental illness
Q: How has pandemic shifted focus for legislature in session?
- Frank – look at health care costs, COVID is not only thing in health care costs, need better coverage and accessibility and address cost
- Thompson – asked Frank if he is talking about Medicaid expansion
- Frank – think we can do better than what is available in Medicaid; does not think Medicaid is working in the state
- Thompson – should expand Medicaid and pull additional money down from federal level
- Thompson – Have rural hospitals closing because they can’t keep their doors open
- Thompson – discusses ranking of Texas in health care, need to think about areas people need treatment such as family violence, mental health, etc
- Frank – they both want money spent efficiently and they will try to make it better this session and won’t get stuck on what its called
Q: Do you want to be chair again and if so what would your top priorities be?
- Frank – continue roll out in foster services, Medicaid improvements, health care cost, but he would say number one is a need to focus on making sure we don’t have this issue in nursing homes again, should always have at least one person who can come visit you from outside
- Thompson – ways to provide better quality of health and if we can cover more people who don’t have insurance… particularly children
Q: Waiting list for programs servicing people of disabilities?
- Frank – was going to work on during the interim and amazing to him they have not yet found a way to have public hearings, exploring ways to remove waitlist but thankful for study bill coming out
Q: Worried about something not be accomplished due to COVID?
- Thompson – don’t want to see a lot of cuts in HHSC, hopeful monies in RDF will cover a lot of services they are providing
- Thompson – be able to make sure people have access to care, have daycares that are safe, access for children to have healthcare even if its telemedicine