Texans Are Paying the Price of a Broken System
The Gallup data is clear and consistent: healthcare costs remain the single biggest financial worry for American families. Not gas prices. Not groceries. Not rent. Healthcare. When the most prosperous nation in the world produces polling like this, year after year, it’s not a messaging problem, it’s a structural one.
Texas is not exempt. Our families face the same opaque pricing, the same one-size-fits-all insurance mandates, and the same market distortions that drive costs up while locking patients out. The good news? Texas leadership is finally ready to name the solution out loud.
Markets Work — When We Let Them
Speaker Dustin Burrows was direct in a recent panel discussion he had in Austin when he said we need to make healthcare and health insurance affordable again. He elaborated by saying, “Real price transparency and competition is part of what we need to come back with a solution for. Let markets work. It’s kind of an amazing concept. It works everywhere else, except where we don’t let them”
Healthcare affordability has topped Americans’ list of concerns — again. The data is in. The leadership is aligned. The moment for real, market-based reform in Texas is now.
Americans rank healthcare affordability as their top financial concern — for the second consecutive year
The Speaker pointed to Chairman James Frank and the newly formed House Select Committee on Health Care Affordability as the engine driving these conversations forward. Price transparency. Competition. Consumer choice. These aren’t abstract ideals, they’re policy levers with proven results everywhere markets are allowed to function. Healthcare should be no different.
Strengthening Integrity in Pharmacy Claims Within Texas Medicaid
Healthcare programs can’t function when fraud is corroding them from the inside. At a recent Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing, the Texas Office of the Inspector General shared testimony that deserves serious attention from lawmakers and stakeholders alike: waste, fraud, and abuse in the state's healthcare system continues to be a significant and costly problem. One sector alone represented billions lost in taxpayer-funded Medicaid and state health program dollars. These bad actors are contributing to rising costs for patients and payers across the system and addressing them is essential to protecting the integrity of the system.
One of Speaker Burrows’ charges to the House Select Committee on Health Care Affordability is to evaluate health care cost drivers, including statutory, regulatory and administrative burdens, and the impact of fraud, waste, and abuse. The timing couldn’t be more fitting.
The convergence of public demand, strong leadership, and clear data creates a narrow window for transformational policy. During the interim session, TAHC will work with lawmakers to develop practical solutions focused on consumer transparency, stronger market competition, fewer barriers to access, and real progress toward addressing Texas’ health care cost crisis.
Speaker Burrows’ challenge to the legislature to “make healthcare and health insurance affordable again” should not and will not be taken lightly. Texas is positioned to make the most consequential and comprehensive changes to the health care system, opening the door for a healthier population of Texans for years to come.
TAHC looks forward to working the Chairman Frank and the rest of the members of the House Select Committee on Health Care Affordability leading up to the legislative session.