There will be a tidal wave of people coming into the emergency rooms. The Texas Department of Human Services estimates 900,000 people or nearly one-quarter of the population of Harris, Liberty, Montgomery, Fort Bend, Chambers and Waller counties were without health insurance in 1994. That's up from 666,297 or 19.68 percent of the population in 1991. Many are working people whose employers don't provide health insurance. She, too, predicts that many of these uninsured individuals will wind up falling back on public health care facilities.
Access is one thing.
Cost is another. UT-Houston faces a similar problem. In effect, we subsidize the cost of care for the poor and uninsured by providing their medical care at less than the actual cost, and then make that up out of the revenues we earn from those who pay, such as insured patients and patients covered by Medicaid and Medicare. But cost shifting will be harder to do in the future, a worrisome prospect for Low and hospital district officials. Welfare reform will eliminate Medicaid assistance to legal and illegal immigrants.