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Last night, I attended a meeting aptly named “Post-Legislative Session Update & Healthcare Impact to North Texas.”  The budget was approved just days ago, special sessions were scheduled, and some outstanding bills responsive to hospital needs and nursing issues were passed.

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SB 840 is named the Jacqueline “Jackie” Pokuaa and Katie “Annette” Flowers Act in memory of the nurse and social worker shot and killed by a violent criminal in Methodist Dallas Medical Center. The bill increases the penalty for assaulting hospital personnel, including nurses, physicians, physician assistants, maintenance or janitorial staff, receptionists, and other individuals employed by or working in a hospital, from a misdemeanor to a felony.

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SB 1004, which is also responsive to the shootings at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, makes it a felony to remove an electronic monitoring device if the person was ordered to wear the device as a condition of community supervision, parole, mandatory supervision, or release on bail. The man who shot Jacqueline “Jackie” Pokuaa and Katie “Annette” Flowers cut off his ankle monitor before going to Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

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A bill that was not passed due to timing was a bill requiring hospitals to get advance notice of parolees for the most violent crimes and on an ankle monitor who want to go on a hospital campus. If Methodist Dallas knew a violent parolee with an ankle monitor was heading to the hospital they would have been on high alert and who have required him to enter through the Emergency Department where the entrance had a weapons detection system, perhaps keeping the events that happened last year from happening.

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SB 25 was passed, establishing scholarships, grants, and loan repayment programs to support nursing students and faculty. This is to address the massive nursing and physician shortage.

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Then there was Medicaid. The expansion of Medicaid health coverage did not happen. Texas is one of ten states that has refused to expand the coverage. We also have the highest rate (18%) and number of uninsured residents (> 5 million) in the country. The expansion would bring $5.4 billion in federal funding into the state’s economy and provide health insurance to about one million newly eligible Texans. John Hawkins, CEO of the Texas Hospitals Association, spoke last night about how, in his opinion, Medicaid expansion offers a lifeline, especially for rural community hospitals that are struggling to stay afloat because of rising healthcare costs. But again this did not pass.

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Let me leave you with a bill, SB 379, that did pass and will help the wallet of parents and women because it eliminates the sales tax on diapers, wipes, and women’s health supplies.

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Bills/laws passed will be in effect on September 1.

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And, not addressed specifically last night due to the agenda being focused on policy, but as the waitlist grows for psychiatric beds at Texas State Hospitals, the newly approved budget allocates a few billion toward bringing over a thousand new psychiatric beds online all over the state from Uvalde to El Paso, Lubbock, Harlingen, Terrell, Wichita Falls, and Amarillo. Combine that with the previously funded state hospitals in Rusk, San Antonio, Kerrville, and Austin, and it’s a good thing $3.3 billion (SB 52) was allocated last session, in 2021, toward campus construction of healthcare-related buildings to address increased enrollment and eventually helping to alleviate some of the workforce shortage.

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Lastly, do you ‘Remember the Alamo’?  The State’s budget allocates $400 million for the historic Alamo redevelopment – now estimated to cost $504 million – including street closures, plaza improvements, a new museum, artifact collection, and education centers.

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While there are special sessions ongoing, that’s a wrap on my summary.

Thanks,

Jaime Pacilio