Is Health Care Bill Good for Houston?

One out of three, when it comes to medical care in Harris County it is a significant and recurring fraction. That's because one out of every three residents here is without private health coverage.

"We have well over million people who are uninsured," confirms Dr. Lewis Foxhall, president of the Harris County Medical Society.

The consequence? One out of three tax dollars you pay the county, fund the indigent health care safety net, known as the Harris County Hospital System, a $1 billion dollar a year operation delivering free or heavily discounted services.

For those who qualify, access to care comes with what's called the "gold card".

"With the gold card they don't charge you anything. If you are going to get medicine they charge you for the medicine, but other than that, they don't charge you anything," says 18 year old Alejandra Gomez, outside a clinic operated by HCHD.

At those prices it should come as no surprise demand for treatment is high and delays both frequent and painful.

"I've been waiting on this surgery for eight months now," says Gonzales Dowdell outside LBJ Hospital, one of two acute care facilities in the HCHD system.

"Last time I was here at L.B.J., even Ben Taub (hospital) it took them six to eight hours to see me to even see what was wrong," he adds.

Dowdell and Gomez are among the hundreds of thousands of Houstonians president Obama proposes to serve with the "public option", a government funded health insurance plan.

It's a prospect which poses an important question. If huge numbers of the previously uninsured will soon have the means to leave the current health care safety net, why is the county negotiating the purchase of what some call yet "another welfare hospital"?

"Right behind me is a hospital we do not need and the taxpayers of Harris County shouldn't have to buy," says Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack.

Radack believes buying Memorial Hermann Southwest for $165 million is a boondoggle waiting to happen.

"For somebody at the hospital district who recently said this will not cause a tax increase, they don't know what the hell they are talking about," Radack insists.

Radack says what most taxpayers don't know is that congress and president Obama, strapped for funding, may redirect federal dollars away from the Harris County health safety net and into the new government insurance program.

"That $250 million is pulled by the feds and the hospital district property tax rate will go up about double," Radack predicted.

"That is an absolute concern," says David Lopez, CEO of the Harris County Hospital District.

He agrees future health reform could blow a big hole in the system's funding, but does not concede that burden will likely fall on local taxpayers.

"We have to position ourselves so that if we lose those funds we can make them up so where else. We cannot and will not count on strictly tax dollars to meet our needs," he says.

In fact, Lopez believes the purchase of Memorial Hermann Southwest could easily prove a financial solution, because it would enable his staff to serve, at a profit to Medicaid and Medicare patients who abandon the system due to overcrowding and lack of amenities, like private rooms.

"Those are our patients for years, they finally get a Medicaid card or a Medicare Care Card and then we lose them to other systems. The profit margin would be very low, but it helps us offset the cost of the indigent care we provide in our community," he contends.

There is one thing that both sides agree on.

That is, even the most ambitious Obama health care proposal will leave at least half the uninsured in Harris County without medical coverage, which means it's hardly time yet to cut down "the safety net."