text_1: Nelson Wolff Says uncompensated health care costs absorbed by Texas hospitals are adding $1,800 a year to Texas private insurance rates.
text_2: Wolff said uncompensated health care costs absorbed by Texas hospitals are adding $1,800 a year to private insurance rates. His figure strikes us as worthy of skepticism partly because research on this topic seems to be driven by up-front assumptions--some of them fiercely debated. As troubling, the figure reflects 2009 estimates reached using a previous estimate of how much of such costs were passed through in 2005, nearly a decade ago. We found no post-2009 state-by-state estimates of the cost impact, while other analyses have found that although cost-shifting occurs, private insurance rates are not greatly affected. This claim, which retains an element of truth.