U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas), who is hoping to make health care a major issue in this year’s Texas Senate race, met with local health experts in San Antonio on Monday.
The roundtable at the Northeast Bexar County Democrat’s office focused on how San Antonio leaders are dealing with hospital closings, like the one that recently closed on the South Side, and the large uninsured population that is growing as residents, who received Medicaid during the pandemic were taken off the rolls.
Allred said that in his area, when Baylor Scott & White Medical Center closed a few years ago, he was able to have the facility donated to the Department of Veterans Affairs so the community wouldn’t completely lose those hospital beds.
“I know very well what we face in North Texas,” said Allred, who used the meeting to learn about San Antonio-specific challenges ahead of the statewide race this November. Leaders from South Texas Allergy & Asthma Medical Professionals and the capital research nonprofit Every Texan participated in the event.
Although the 2024 election cycle has so far been dominated by immigration and border security, the NFL player-turned-civil-rights attorney sees potential in reviving an issue that Democrats have had success with in the past.
Affordable Care Act
It’s Allred running against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who famously shut down the government in his crusade against the Affordable Care Act in 2013 — a time when Republicans were gaining ground because of the backlash over the health care law.
But Obamacare’s popularity has soared since then, and Cruz’s continued efforts to dismantle it — by stripping away protections for people with pre-existing conditions — have given Democrats their most effective line of attack against Republicans across the country in 2018.
Cruz’s own campaign said he was hurt by 11th-hour ads suggesting he wanted to kick people out of their health care, contributing to his narrow 2.6 percent victory over Democrat Beto O’Rourke in the same year.
“I find it amazing that this guy still wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, wants to go back to the days when people who had a pre-existing condition were discriminated against,” Allred said at Monday’s assembly.
Cruz’s campaign declined to comment, but he spent his Easter vacation campaigning on border security.
In an interview after Monday event, Allred said he’s “never seen an election where health care wasn’t one of the top issues” because “it’s so personal” and “such an ongoing issue for Texans.”
“We are where we are, as the state with the highest uninsured rate, because of political decisions,” he said. “I think the Texans are suffering with the current setup, and for me, that’s going to be incredibly important.”
Since the latest Texas Senate race, health care has been pushed further into the spotlight by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, paving the way for Texas to impose its own abortion restrictions, Allred said.
“We’re living through what an almost total abortion ban looks like,” said Allred, who chose Dr. Austin Dennard, OBYGN, who fled the state because of her own abortion, as his State of the Union guest. “Providers seem afraid to try to provide critical care.”
Personal experience
As Allred seeks to bring health care to the forefront of his race, he and his guests, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) and state Rep. Josey Garcia, all spoke about their personal experiences with the health care system at Monday’s gathering .
Allred, who was raised by a single mother, said he’s especially grateful that Obamacare made it so that people can’t be kicked out or denied health insurance for developing a serious illness.
“My mom had breast cancer and a mastectomy,” he said. “These are things that just happen, aren’t they?”
Castro, who underwent surgery to remove cancerous gastrointestinal tumors about a year ago, discussed the expensive, ongoing treatment he receives, which many of his constituents cannot afford.
“I was diagnosed with cancer two years ago and had major surgery last year, [with] 10-day stay at MD Anderson [Cancer Center in Houston]Castro said. “Therefore I have to take, as part of this treatment, a medicine every month called Lanreotide.”
Lanreotide is used to slow the growth of tumors that cannot be removed. Although Castro said he is “doing well” physically, he still has tumors in his liver and lung, but they have not grown in size in the past year and a half.
The list price for Lanreotide is $24,000 per injection, Castro said, but the negotiated price between his insurance company and the hospital is $6,500. He expects to have to take the drug for the rest of his life.
“There are so many people who are either underinsured … or completely uninsured that I know are not getting the full treatment that they need,” he said. “We can change that.”
Texas GOP leaders have expressed no interest in joining the 41 states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which uses federal money to reimburse states for much of the cost of enrolling people who would otherwise they would not be able to afford health care.
Garcia, who has adult twins on the autism spectrum, called that reality one of the most frustrating parts of her first legislative session last year.
“For us, the fear of what their lives are going to be like as young people with an intellectual disability, it’s heartbreaking and a very stressful and sometimes very bleak prospect,” she said.