Texas Is Dragging It’s Feet Feeding The Poor And May Lose Funding Altogether

How embarrassing is it that we have money to help our most needy, and can't get it to them in a timely fashion?

Something is broke in the State of Texas. It appears we have a problem either working with the Federal Government when we need to, or that our agencies are dysfunctional. Whether that dysfunction is a lack of staff, poor management, or a lack of proper direction from their superiors is up for debate. When there is an urgent situation like we have now it should be far more important to take care of the people now and figure out what went wrong later.

Here's the rub, the Federal Government gives Texas 45 days from application to determine who gets Medicaid and the state is not getting that done. This means people lose their eligibility and SNAP benefits.  So obviously something is gumming up the works in the State Of Texas and we should rightfully be embarrassed.

I don't know of anyone who applies for benefits, that doesn't need the benefits immediately. Having a backlog of cases is completely unacceptable and something should be done to expedite these cases.  I don't think the Feds cutting off funding is punitive either; why should they throw more cash this way until things are straightened out?

Things have got so bad, the Texas agencies dropping the ball now have to show the Federal Centers for Medicaid and CHIP Services a plan for digging out from under this mess. I will go again to the ideal that Texas was "Big Hat Country", that everyone was welcome "under the hat" and that we took care of our own. Right now, we're not taking care of our own even with somebody else's money.