Becker's Hospital Review - ‘We take our direction from our community’: Texas health system battles to preserve its Medicaid plan
In 2024, the Texas Health & Human Services Commission (HHSC) denied contract renewals to several Medicaid providers, including three non‑profit, Texas‑based children's hospital plans: Cook Children's Health Plan, Texas Children's Health Plan and Driscoll Children's Health Plan. Despite their combined 60-plus years of proven, high‑quality care, HHSC awarded the multi‑billion‑dollar Medicaid STAR/CHIP contracts to several publicly traded insurers beholden to out‑of‑state shareholders.
Cook Children's Health Plan President Karen Love spoke with Becker's Hospital Review to provide an update on the situation and an explanation of the impact this decision would have on the state of Texas and children's access to non-profit health care coverage.
“We take our direction from our community,” Love told Becker’s. “Provider-affiliated plans like ours, where you have the hospital and the doctors and the payer all working together for the benefit of these children, is a different model of care and a different model of coverage than the large national for-profit companies.”
