A common refrain in states that are not expanding Medicaid is that it is a broken system that doesn’t pay doctors and hospitals sufficiently. But in Brownsville, Texas, Medicaid is prized — it is one of the few ways any care is paid for and expansion is seen as necessary, even by elected Republicans. Sarah Varney spent a week in the area and came back with a story that goes beyond politics and grapples with the public health implications of not expanding Medicaid in a Texas county where the uninsurance rate is nearly 40 percent.
