Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher Highlights Dangers of Republican Health Care Cuts at Roundtable Discussion in Houston

Today, Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07) joined representatives from Legacy Community Health and health care leaders from across the greater Houston community for a discussion about the growing health care crisis in the United States and how recent policy changes will affect their work.

"People in Houston and across the country are in a worsening health care crisis because of policy choices that Republicans in Congress and the Trump Administration have made this year," said Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher. "Those choices include cutting Medicaid funding and failing to extend the Affordable Care Act's tax credits, which expire at the end of this year. These cuts will hurt every American, reducing the quality and availability of health care services here in Houston and across the country. I was grateful to visit with community leaders about what these changes will mean for the people who live and work here, and how we can work together to enact health policy that helps, not hurts, and the urgency of doing so at this moment."

Legacy Community Health is Texas' largest federally qualified health center (FQHC) and the seventh largest in the nation, a full-service health care system comprised of more than 50 locations in the Texas Gulf Coast region.

Since 2014, nearly 50 million Americans have gotten health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. And, because the marketplaces offer lower-cost coverage to millions of people, the number of uninsured people in the United States dropped from 45.2 million in 2013 to 26.4 million in 2022. In Texas, 1,671,965 people are estimated to lose health insurance because of the Republican budget bill's cuts to Medicaid and Congress' failure to extend the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits. In Texas' Seventh Congressional District specifically, 125,000 people rely on enhanced premium tax credits, which will expire this year without congressional action, leading to an anticipated increase in premiums for health care coverage. Democrats are urging Republicans to negotiate in good faith a government funding package that includes an extension of these tax credits.