As the country combats the pandemic, millions are struggling with their employment status. There are currently more than a million people in Texas who are struggling with health care over the loss of the employment-based-insurance coverage. Many are awaiting the reopening to find jobs and regain their financial losses. Businesses are hopeful as they slowly open their doors to the public. 

Some Texans have landed in the sporadic health care safety net of the state, where advocates are claiming they could be removed from mental and physical health services as they encounter the economic tension of a public health crisis.

Research studies have estimated that from "25 million to 45 million people in the US" are likely o lose their health insurance through the companies they are working for in the months ahead if the rate for unemployment increases to 20 percent.

To date, the study also showed that to date, the number has reached almost 15 percent, a record high, it indicated, "since the Great Depression."

A Terrible Situation in Texas

The situation, based on the study, is specifically terrible in Texas, where the officials have limited access to publicly financed health insurance projects for the less fortunate, and, as the research said, "Have led the charge to toss in court, the Affordable Care Act."

Texas, which, more than five million residents or about 18 percent of the populace, now consider a home this particular state is the minority of all the states that have dropped to extend the coverage of Medicaid to individuals earning near or lower than the poverty line.

As a result, out of the 1.6 million Texan people who have possibly lost their employer-based health insurance amid the pandemic, 30,000 would be qualified for Medicaid should there be an expansion of the program by the state, Kaiser Family Foundation's recent estimates said.

The approach of the state stands opposing to the 36 other states that offer the expanded Medicaid covering adults earning below 138 percent of the poverty line or roughly $36,000 annually for a household with four family members.

Affected Unemployed Texans

One of the affected Texans is 35-year-old Laci Crosson whose son no longer has pills for his attention deficit disorder. In March, her husband was laid off from his job as a mechanic for heavy equipment. 

Crosson hurried to get two younger kids enrolled in Medicaid. However, for the adults which include her eldest son who has a behavioral condition and is currently taking Adderall, no support is available, she said in a report.

For quite some time now, the stay-at-home mom said her son has not been taking his medicines. She herself, she shared, recently experienced a medical emergency after she "had a bad bout of pneumonia" just a few weeks after her husband was laid off according to the local report.

For days, Crosson shared she was bedridden that her husband got so worried she had COVID-19. She then went to the hospital and immediately, she was asked if she had health insurance.

She was given strep test, a flu test, electrocardiogram, chest X-ray, and a bill she said, she feared she wouldn't be able to afford. 

Currently, the Crossons, already lost a storage unit since they can no longer afford the payments. The family is downsizing its hose to a smaller size, as well.

Texas enforces the strictest eligibility for Medicaid across the state and adults are possibly to be eligible for the public insurance program except if they have a disability that they are unable to work, or if they are pregnant.

The limiting criteria have reportedly left a huge health insurance hole for those who are not poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid but earn quite little to get supports in the "federal marketplace."

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