The Commonwealth Fund released a report on April 29 detailing specific health disparities, and Texas notably has an ongoing issue: Hispanic people in the state often experience worse health care access, outcomes, and quality than other groups.
It’s a problem that’s plaguing every state, but the Lone Star State is seeing a more severe trend than any others in the Southwest.
The senior vice president for the Commonwealth Fund’s Achieving Equitable Outcomes, Dr. Laurie Zephyrin, said, “In most states, American Indian and Alaska Native people and Black and Hispanic people and communities really continue to bear the highest burden and have the worst health access and affordability.”
One of the Commonwealth Fund’s research associates, Kristen Kolb, added that, “The Hispanic population had some of the lowest scores achieved in the report, particularly in a handful of southern and southeastern states, including Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Texas.”
One of the primary reasons behind this trend is that the Hispanic population often has less readily available access to affordable healthcare. “When health services are not affordable, people are more likely to forgo needed care,” she said, which can lead to tragic outcomes like “premature and avoidable deaths.”
The study also concluded that in roughly 43 states, Hispanic adults were more likely than any other category of adults to forgo the care they need due to lack of affordability. That isn’t the only reason why the problem seems to be persisting in Texas, though.
Several factors are contributing to the alarming trend
When analyzing data to put together its 2026 State Health Disparities Report, the Commonwealth Fund looked into the quality of healthcare in every state, as well as access to care, health outcomes, and use of services. Of the 48 states— along with the District of Columbia—that were ranked in the report, Texas ultimately fell into the 45th spot for the performance of its health systems, and in particular how the Hispanic population suffered within that metric.
The organization emphasized that even though the data was recent, newer struggles in the American landscape are piling onto these existing issues.
With state and federal policies rapidly changing regarding programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and Medicaid regarding the eligibility requirements for each, these disparities will likely only deepen over the next few years. Changes to the latter will be particularly harmful, as new requirements and restrictions will prevent “most legal immigrants and asylees from [federal healthcare] marketplace and Medicaid Coverage.”
Even for those who qualify for healthcare, services are extremely expensive and do not always receive positive rankings in terms of the quality of care being offered or in the outcomes Hispanic people face after visiting a doctor.
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It’s easy to understand why Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the US as of 2023/2024 when taking all of these things into consideration. One of the Commonwealth Fund’s Tracking Health System Performance initiative’s senior scientists, Dave Radley, said, “The thing that stands out in Texas, sort of is that really high uninsured rate. Having health insurance sort of is the first step to making sure that people can get access to primary care or any kind of health care.”
An inability to afford health insurance, coupled with low-quality care and problematic outcomes, has created a seemingly unavoidable issue for Texas’s Hispanic population.
Current immigration policies are worsening the problem
Officials with the Commonwealth Fund are concerned with the restrictive immigration policies currently ramping up in the US, particularly when it comes to increased ICE activity. They’ve indicated that fewer people in immigrant communities are utilizing preventative health services because they’re afraid of ICE raids and seizures, which is putting those people at risk.
The president of the Commonwealth Fund, Dr. Joseph Betancourt, expressed his frustration “with the current environment” and how it’s negatively impacting communities that are facing numerous disparities as is.
He said, “If a virus emerges, it’s not asking its victim if it’s documented or not. We really need to be more thoughtful in a public health approach and a thoughtful approach to immigration enforcement. Our concerns today are real, and I think that’s what we’re beginning to see.”
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
