"A study carried out by Harvard Medical School Professors David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler concluded that almost 100,000 people died in the United States each year because of lack of needed care—three times the number of people who died of AIDS."
Source: http://www.monthlyreview.org/0903navarro.htm
“With Obamacare mandates coming down, we have a situation where we cannot reduce benefits or change eligibility” to cut costs, said State Representative Warren Chisum, Republican of Pampa, the veteran conservative lawmaker who recently entered the race for speaker of the House. “This system is bankrupting our state,” he said. “We need to get out of it. And with the budget shortfall we’re anticipating, we may have to act this year.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/us/politics/07ttmedicaid.html?_r=1

He is talking about cutting Medicaid, the health care service created for the weak, the poor and the disabled and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a program that covers uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid.. They try to blame it on the individual mandate in the current federal health insurance reform bill. They do not seem to understand that it is the uninsured who do not pay into the system that cause a cost shifting. The cost shifting raises the premiums of the ones who are paying into the system. Texas Republicans would also turn away tens of billions of dollars in federal money that the federal government provides to assist in the finance of Medicaid. All this, despite the fact that Texas already has the highest rate of uninsured and poor people in the nation.

Right now, those plans are "nothing but talks," but if they really plan to pass language that gets rid off Medicaid and CHIP, the Texan health care system will fall apart within a year after the law goes into effect. Not only that. The fact hat millions will not have access to basic health care will increase the number of diseases with the possible risk of being a breeding ground for pandemics since the state, close to the Mexican border also has the highest number of illegal immigrants.

It reflects again the real face of the far-right Republican Party with its Socialdarwinist, short-term thinking that will destroy this country and the people who live in this country if we do not stop them.

Links:
Code Red: The Critical Condition of Health in Texas
Texas is Near Bottom of Healthcare Rankings