Austin, TX
Texas leads nation in number of people who lost Medicaid coverage
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas is leading the nation with the number of adults and children who lost Medicaid health coverage during the state’s unwinding process. Over two million people were unenrolled in the last year because of the end of federal coverage, that Texas chose to not supplement.
As a result, hospital bills could rise to cover the uninsured.
“If we have a high percentage that can’t pay in hospital ultimately it’s going to affect everyone through their health insurance premiums,” said Stephen Love, president and CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council.
Texans who lost Medicaid were determined ineligible or removed for procedural reasons. That happens when the state can’t locate someone to verify reenrollment or doesn’t have enough information to determine if someone is eligible.
However, federal law requires states to attempt to use data already available to determine eligibility.
“States usually have this set up where there are certain groups of folks, broad kind of buckets, where they think they’re going to have enough information based on those systems to know whether they can do this and groups where they don’t,” said Laura Dague, a Public Service and Administration professor at Texas A&M University.
Texas Health and Human Services says Medicaid enrollment numbers are in line with the department’s projections, and what they expected the dis-enrollment would be at this time. But some experts say more people should’ve been re-enrolled.
“Texas decided to go through this Medicaid unwinding process pretty quickly. We could’ve taken longer. Other states have chosen to extend the amount of time to make sure that everybody that was still eligible was able to stay on,” said Brittney Taylor-Ross, a senior policy analyst at Every Texan.
While the state works to review Medicaid eligibility, other social services have been delayed.
“Mid-April, we were looking at about 67,000 SNAP applications that were sitting in the backlog,” said Taylor-Ross.
The effect of the people losing coverage could trickle into other aspects of the state.
“If you’ve got people that are missing working, calling in sick, etcetera it’s going to raise other type of workforce cost for employers,” said Love.
Texas HHS expects Medicaid enrollment numbers to continue to fluctuate as they complete the redetermination process. They’ve released their move up-to-date figures of their Medicaid unwinding effort on their End of Continuous Medicaid Coverage dashboard.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas’ highway system dropped two spots since 2025, and now ranks at No. 27 in the country for its cost-effectiveness and overall conditions, according to the Reason Foundation’s 2026 Highway Report.
The report assessed pavement conditions, fatalities, deficient bridges, infrastructure costs and congestion levels across the United States. Texas earned the following rankings:
- 33rd in urban interstate pavement conditions
- 21st in rural interstate pavement conditions
- 39th in urban arterial pavement conditions
- 12th in rural arterial pavement conditions
- 3rd in structurally deficient bridges
- 26th in urban fatality rate
- 42nd in rural fatality rate
- 41st in traffic congestion
“More than 42,000 of the nation’s 618,923 highway bridges, nearly 7%, are still structurally deficient. Arizona, Nevada, and Texas reported the lowest percentages of deficient bridges,” the report said.
The full report can be found online.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Small hail peppered the Austin area as strong thunderstorms moved through Saturday.
A few of the storms dropped rain and up to pea-sized hail in San Marcos, Dripping Springs and the Austin metro area.
A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for Williamson County around 8:15 p.m., and then canceled shortly after. However, it was enough for the Two Step Inn music festival in Georgetown to cancel shows for the rest of the evening. Event organizers say the festival will run as planned Sunday.
KXAN’s First Warning Weather team is monitoring the storms. We will update this post as the evening continues.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Society Sons of the American Revolution unveiled a new monument at the Texas State Cemetery on Saturday, dedicated to Texas Revolutionary War soldiers.
“We must educate every generation about why it is that America grew from a tenuous 13 colonies into the most powerful country in the history of the world,” said Governor Abbott. “This monument here is an enduring testament to the heroes who fought for the freedom that is unique to America.”
The monument was dedicated to 69 soldiers who fought in the American Revolutionary War and later settled in Texas, according to a press release.
Among those that were honored, Abbott recognized:
- José Santiago Seguín, grandfather of Texas Revolutionary hero Juan Seguín.
- Peter Sides, who fought in the 2nd Battalion of the North Carolina Regiment of the Colonial Army, and was later killed in the 1813 Battle of Medina, fighting for Mexican independence against Spain.
- Antonio Gil Y’Barbo, the founder of Nacogdoches.
- William Sparks, who fought as a mounted rifleman in the American Revolution and later settled in Texas. He had two sons and two grandsons who fought in the Texas Revolution.
“This year marks the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, which not only gave freedom to the British colonies of North America, but inspired movements for freedom and liberty all over the world,” said TSSAR President Mel Oller. “Texans played a role in the war too, and it’s important to recognize them, and the sacrifices they made for our freedom.”
At the monument unveiling, Abbott was also inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution and received its Silver Good Citizenship Medal.
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