Nearly one-third of Texas Hispanics still lack health insurance 2 million in Texas still uninsured, local report says

Javier Delgado of Killeen, Texas, has his height and weight checked as his brother, Jose, in blue shirt, looks on during an Hispanic Health Fair in Killeen, Texas, Sunday, June 5, 2005. The event was sponsored by local health clinics to assist Hispanics in the area with health screenings. (AP Photo/Killeen Daily Herald, Steve Traynor) less Javier Delgado of Killeen, Texas, has his height and weight checked as his brother, Jose, in blue shirt, looks on during an Hispanic Health Fair in Killeen, Texas, Sunday, June 5, 2005. The event was sponsored ... more Photo: STEVE TRAYNOR, MBR Photo: STEVE TRAYNOR, MBR Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Nearly one-third of Texas Hispanics still lack health insurance 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

At least 2 million Hispanics in Texas remain uninsured even though nearly half of those residents are eligible for coverage, a local health care report has found.

The findings by Houston's Episcopal Health Foundation and Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy were released Thursday as part of an ongoing series measuring the effectiveness in Texas of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

The uninsured rate among Hispanics in the state has dropped to 32 percent from 46 percent in the fall of 2013, a dramatic decline that the study's authors attribute to the federal health care law. But the report found that despite such gains, nearly one third of all Hispanics in the state remain without coverage.

The new report follows a study by the Commonwealth Fund, a national research foundation that concluded that most states, including Texas, have made progress in improving access to health insurance and care, but the results are not as robust as many had hoped.

In some places, according to the Commonwealth study, medical out-comes and access have declined.

The Commonwealth Fund report found that in major Texas cities, including Houston, the un-insured rate remains about one in four. In the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley, the uninsured rate is nearly one in two.

Hispanics in Texas lag far behind other groups in obtaining insurance, even though many are eligible for either coverage through federal health insurance exchanges or private plans, the local report said.

While about one in three of the state's Hispanics remain uninsured, only one in 10 whites lack coverage.

"The disparity between the two groups is striking. The Hispanic population is growing at a faster rate than the state average, which makes it increasingly important to the entire state that Hispanics gain affordable health insurance coverage," Vivian Ho, the chair in health economics at the Baker Institute and co-author of the report, said in a statement.

Both the local and national reports found that poverty continues to play a role in the lack of coverage.

The Houston study estimated that more than half of the uninsured Hispanics in Texas were poor, and of those, about one third fall into the "coverage gap" where they make too much money to be eligible for the state Medicaid program, but not enough to qualify for the subsidies offered through federal health insurance exchanges, which are designed to lower premium prices.

Texas is one of 19 states that did not expand Medicaid as part of the health care law. State leaders have said the safety-net health program for the poor is dysfunctional and should not be expanded.

"Unless Texas expands Medicaid or devises an alternative system of coverage, these … Hispanics will likely remain uninsured," Elena Marks, president and CEO of Episcopal Health Foundation and also an author of the study, said in a statement.