Public, private TX hospitals spar over Medicaid

Texas' public hospitals are asking the state to make some taxpayer money now spent on Medicaid care instead pay for the uninsured, a group that soon may be mostly illegal immigrants. The proposal, under consideration by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, is pitting public and private hospitals against each other for hundreds of millions of dollars allocated annually in a supplementary Medicaid program. The public hospitals argue the program favors private hospitals.