CEO Messages

With no major federal or state offices up for grabs, it’s likely most people aren’t thinking of this as an election year. But in fact, it is – and for health care champions, there’s one issue on the ballot particularly worth your participation, one that could potentially shape Texas’ health care landscape for a long time to come.

COVID-19 is back. And while it may not become a public health emergency this time – knock on wood – its resurgence serves as a timely note of caution.

For some time, rural hospitals – the facilities in our state facing the greatest threat to their existence – have needed help. This year, in several key ways, the Texas Legislature provided a helping hand. But there remains work to do.

For years, hospitals here in Texas have been experiencing that opposite: We’ve been hurting as our personnel numbers have waned. But now – after a legislative session in which the Texas Hospital Association stressed workforce again and again – we’ve got the barbells, bands and machinery to regain much of our lost strength.

Defense wins championships, the age-old expression goes in sports. Politics is sport in and of itself, and THA had to play some serious defense during the just-concluded session of the Texas Legislature. Now, the work begins to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.