Richard Scotch, PhD, is a professor of sociology, public policy and political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas. For him, a pressing issue in state health policy is improving the efficiency and equity of Texas’s healthcare system. Ever-increasing “political baggage,” however, makes this a challenge, he said. Scotch told us about some of what he’s watching in the Texas health policy landscape at our 2022 North Texas State of Reform conference last fall.
“Whether it’s issues about access to abortion, or access to contraception, or certain kinds of equity in terms of healthcare, whether immigrants ought to have access to healthcare—these are now kind of ideological issues as well as policy issues. And it gets in the way, I think, of coming up with good solutions to them. That’s not true in every area of health policy, but I think it’s true in many areas.”