Texas health officials violated state law when they said they would award a multibillion dollar series of health insurance contracts to for-profit companies while overlooking nonprofit health plans, a lawsuit brought by two nonprofit health insurers alleges.
Up for grabs is a piece of roughly $10 billion, doled out to health plans that insure patients in Texas’ privatized Medicaid system who are blind, disabled or older than 65. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission announced tentative winners in October.
Absent from the list were the Houston region’s Community Health Choice and San Antonio’s Community First Health plans, two nonprofit health insurers that are owned and operated by local hospital districts. They argue that a provision of state law — entitled “mandatory contracts,” which addresses nonprofit health plans affiliated with public hospitals — guarantees them a spot in Medicaid’s STAR+PLUS program for adults with disabilities and the elderly.
Source: Nonprofits claim Texas broke the law by leaving them out of Medicaid contracts / The Texas Tribune