Seeing Red

S001 E026 - Special Guest Genevieve Collins from AFP Texas

• Andi Turner & Garrett Fulce • Season 1 • Episode 26

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Genevieve Collins is at the forefront of policy activism and political engagement in Texas. Recognized as an unwavering conservative fighter, Collins is the head of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) in Texas, leading initiatives focused on empowering Americans by advocating for the taxpayer on multiple levels. Her robust career includes impactful contributions to healthcare policy, education, and property tax reform, among other areas. As an accomplished businesswoman and a former Republican congressional nominee, she brings a wealth of expertise to conversations about state and federal policy. Her educational background from the University of Tennessee and SMU in Dallas is complemented by her impressive experience as an NCAA championship rower.

Episode Summary:

Andi Turner and Garrett Fulce welcome Genevieve Collins of Americans for Prosperity Texas to examine the intricacies of policy and political action in the Lone Star State. The discourse delves into the pressing and often contentious issues dominating state dialogue: school choice, border security, and healthcare reform. A tension-filled intersection of ideology and public welfare comes to life in this episode.

After a welcoming introduction that immerses the audience in AFP's grassroots endeavors, Genevieve offers an illuminating overview of key legislative battles in Texas. She portrays the nuances of educational reform efforts, dissecting the collapse of a transformative school choice bill and reiterating AFP's commitment to revolutionizing the system in the sessions to come. Further adding grit to the dialogue, immigration and healthcare reform discussions peel back layers of complexity and reflect the profound need for informed action on both issues.

Key Takeaways:

  • Americans for Prosperity Texas is a nonpartisan organization focusing on taxpayer issues such as healthcare, education, and taxes.
  • The school choice bill in Texas, which emphasized the creation of education savings accounts, did not pass due to legislators' opposition.
  • Immigration remains a top concern for Texas voters, with AFP taking active steps to support meaningful border policy and security initiatives.
  • Healthcare reforms proposed by AFP center on price transparency, increasing access to care, and addressing anticompetitive practices in the healthcare industry.
  • Upcoming legislative sessions may see a renewed push for school choice and healthcare reform, driven by AFP's campaign for policy changes aligned with taxpayer interests.

Resources:


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Announcer:

Welcome to the Seeing Red podcast with Andi Turner and Garrett Fulce. Check it out on Texas Policies and Politics, with some federal issues thrown in, like the Assault Weapons Ban, interest rate hikes. You get it, but it's mostly Texas, since we can't ignore the big stuff either. And now here are your hosts, Andi Turner and Garrett Fulce!

Andi Turner:

Hey everybody, welcome back to this week's show. We have an awesome show lined up for you today. Let me remind you, if you have not seen us on YouTube, you can see us in video on YouTube, youtubecom slash, at the seeing, at the seeing red pod, and all of our socials are at the seeing red pod. So if you want to find us on Twitter at the seeing red pod, if you want to go to the website and listen or watch there, you can do that. You go to the seeing red podcastcom. You can email us at hosts, h-o-s-t-s at the seeing red podcastcom, and we definitely want to hear from you. What do you like, what do you don't like. If you have something you want us to talk about, let us know. But we're glad you're back and for everybody that's new joining us, just finding us welcome. Welcome, garrett. We have an extra special guest today and I'm going to let you introduce her because you are the man.

Garrett Fulce:

Oh, okay, well, thank you, andy. Yeah, today we have a special guest, genevieve Collins, to join us to talk a little bit about the elections and everything going on in Texas today. Genevieve Collins is an unwavering Texan who believes in the fights for Texas to be the greatest state and the greatest nation. She leads Americans for Prosperity across Texas, as well as the Libra Initiative, and focuses her efforts on empowering every American by fighting for the taxpayer at the state and federal level. Her policy activism work includes healthcare policy turning patients into shoppers and giving them more control and choice over their care, while increasing healthcare access and reducing costs. And education. She focuses on ensuring every child has a high quality education that allows them to choose the school of their choice, and ensuring that Texas taxpayers get property tax relief while banning taxpayer-funded lobbying. In 2020, genevieve was the Republican Congressional nominee for Dallas County in Texas 32. She was one of the top candidates in the country and believes that Congress needs more representatives with business sense and a sense of urgency. Prior to her congressional run, she spent 12 years in the private sector, building an education technology company into one of the largest ed tech companies in the country.

Garrett Fulce:

Genevieve is a seventh generation Texan. Peace me by one generation. It's okay, I'm not better and a lifelong Dallasite. She is a proud graduate of the University of Tennessee, where she was a three-time NCAA championship rower row crew, and is also a graduate of SMU in Dallas, where she received her MBA. She and her husband, dwight, live by right rock right rock lake, which is a very, very nice area in the Dallas area that I'm quite fond of. Welcome to the show, genevieve. Thank you so glad to be with you guys. Fantastic. So thank you so much for joining. Why don't we just jump right into it? You are the head of Americans for Prosperity, afp Texas in Texas, and you all have been doing a lot of work. You can see a lot of your folks around the state on social media doing everything this and the other thing. Tell us a little bit about what you all are doing in the run up to this Republican primary on March 5th and then, kind of, we'll go from there.

Genevieve Collins:

So for anyone in your audience that doesn't know who Americans for Prosperity is, I like to tell folks we are the taxpayer champion.

Genevieve Collins:

We are the largest nonpartisan policy and grassroots organization in the state.

Genevieve Collins:

We have 26 full-time staff, 60 part-time staff and last year we had over 175,000 unique activists across Texas join us in various policy fights to improve the lives of Texans.

Genevieve Collins:

What that looks like is how do we engage real people and provide them a positive and solution centered message where they can really be empowered to see the changes they want to see at the state and at the federal level, and sometimes even at the local level, and we've been really focusing on making sure we're passing great policy during the Texas legislature. Last year it seemed like there was never ending legislature, but that's part of the reason why people saw us in for them, but for real people to talk to their legislator and share why they want to see specific bills get passed, whether it's health care, school choice or property tax reform, and then now what that we're post. All of these sessions were focused on the Texas primaries and getting better candidates elected into office to ensure that those reforms that didn't get passed, or the bills that we want to see happen actually happened during the next legislative session in 2025.

Andi Turner:

That's awesome.

Garrett Fulce:

So when you're looking at better candidates I know there's a mix of incumbents and a few challengers in there what are the principal criteria that AFP looks for when they're endorsing a candidate?

Genevieve Collins:

Well, the key word you said is principal. We really like to stand on principal and on the taxpayer issues. So there's a lot of specialists, I would say, in the social spheres. Whether you're talking about abortion or 2A or any of those social issues. We don't touch those. We touch the issues that affect your tax dollars, so health care, immigration, education, taxes and public safety. So what we look for in these candidates is real, genuine policy knowledge, not just hey, what is the latest talking point in the echo chamber going around on different social media. We interview candidates to actually understand what's their philosophy, what's their North Star as they think about policy and as they think about their own communities. Part of what we look for is how are you a genuine part of your community? Because if you're asking people to vote for you, you can't just be a no show within your own community, and so we really like to see that people stand with a gut, they have their own governing set of principles, that they live by, their character, humility, integrity, in addition to genuine policy knowledge.

Garrett Fulce:

Excellent.

Garrett Fulce:

That's awesome yeah it's perfect, one of the biggest things from the legislature last session, because it was really the last thing that the legislature took up. So it's kind of the last thing in everyone's memory is school choice and also it didn't quite get across the finish line. It came as close as it ever had. Tell us a little bit about that final proposal, because we were both diving into the weeds on it and we kind of got details Kind of we're figuring it out, but it was a pretty hefty piece of legislation. Kind of talk about what the Texas model, using that as the Texas model, what that was, and then if that's what you think will be what's pushed in the next in the 89th session and kind of what kind of changes or whatever you might see to that going forward.

Genevieve Collins:

Sure. So in special sessions three and four, we were taught the legislature was specifically focusing on school choice policy, and what that ended up in kind of a bill form was really what I would call an education omnibus, where it looked at how can we do all of the things and pass teacher pay raises past school choice and pass more funding for school districts into one massive bill, instead of doing these as individual part and parcels. And what we saw is that, for the first time in Texas state history that this bill actually got passed out of the House Education Committee with the school choice component. Now what does that mean? The school choice component was really centered around the notion of education savings accounts, and this is essentially it was about a $10,000 tax. It was about $10,000 tax, what some people call voucher. We call it kind of this these are your own tax dollars as paying you paying tax dollars in your community. These are tax dollars that parents are able to actually allocate towards their child's education. Now the state legislature, during regular session, capped the dollar amount of how much an education savings account could potentially be used for, and so, from the state budget, that was $500 million, and so $10,000 per child those, you know, roughly 50,000 kids, so it's not a huge amount of kids that would have the opportunity to have school choice.

Genevieve Collins:

But the idea was to really, one, understand that we want kids to, we want, we don't want kids to be trapped in failing public schools. But, two, this is not a fight between public versus private schools. This is a fight about parents having the ability to choose the right education for their child, and I think that that narrative that's stripped a bit because it really just became about this, you know, public versus private, and that's not the intent. Certainly that's not why AFP is involved in this fight. And then, lastly, education savings accounts were really focused on understanding how do we provide kids that are trapped in failing public schools? How do we get them out? What about kids with disabilities? How do we tear properly kids to be able to have better school choice options? And so that was really kind of what the whole bill looked at. It was to your point earlier, gary, it was a massive bill. I mean it was like well over like 200 pages, which is huge for a state level bill.

Andi Turner:

Huge, that is a big, big bill, for a state level bill is nothing. It is a tiny bill at the federal level. I just want to make sure everybody understands.

Genevieve Collins:

Yeah, thank you, andy. And so what really ended up happening is that, you know, we brought 1200 people to the Capitol in five weeks from all across the state of Texas. Afp is a genuine and authentic grassroots army, and what I heard during regular session from every type of legislator was well, I don't really hear much about this in my district, so I don't really think I'm going to be voting for this. And I said, you know, that's the dangest thing Turns out, I've got 14 offices across the state of Texas. If you're not hearing that in your, in your own district, let me bring your district to you here at the Capitol. And so that's what we did.

Genevieve Collins:

I was really frustrated with this idea that all these state reps weren't hearing from their constituents, so we just brought them to them and we let these folks you know of parents, students, grandparents, teachers, principals, every type of stakeholder that's involved in education we brought with us to the Capitol, from Lubbock to Texarkana, to Harlingen and Brownsville, to El Paso and everywhere in between, because we have offices in all of these places, and so we wanted to make sure that every legislator, regardless of R or D, heard why people want school choice, and, although it didn't pass.

Genevieve Collins:

What we were able to do is visualize and really personalize the people that want this and, more importantly, that need this bill, that need this opportunity, and why they? Why more legislators need to vote for it. And the bill died very ingloriously on November 17th, when all of the Democrats banded together with a bunch of rural Republicans to kill the bill, and by doing so they have made many enemies and, more importantly, the in my, in my personal opinion, they didn't give children the opportunity to get a world class education that those kids deserve because they're going to be the future of Texas.

Andi Turner:

And then that's, that's where it's at Like. So my, my sister from another Mr was here over the weekend and we were talking about this very issue and she said, and I said to her you know, explain to me why, like, my kids are grown, right, my kids are grown and I'm paying taxes to the public schools, I'm not using them. And she said so you don't think that your community being well educated is a good thing? And I was like that, right there, that's the talking point, right. But we went on and and what you don't know about me, but she knows very well, is that all three of my kids I always believed in the right school for the right child.

Andi Turner:

All three of my kids went to three different high schools. My oldest went to a non-denominational private school. He's a Latin curriculum and I recognize that he had, he had the talent for writing and and logic and things like that and he did very, very well and he's an outstanding writer. As a matter of fact, he's done, he's. He chose to go in and be and he did his apprenticeship in the area of electrician. But they he's just as soon as he got his journeyments, they just pumped him right up the food chain because he writes so well. My middle child has no interest in school, so the public school was just fine for him and he was happy as much as teenagers can be, and so he's very happy with that. And my daughter went to excuse me the local Catholic school where not only did she get a thorough understanding of of proper grammar and how to write and she's a great writer but she got the math she needed.

Andi Turner:

Like I couldn't homeschool these kids because I am terrible at math and I'm not as great at science either. But I know people who are homeschooled. I know students, children, who are homeschooled and are adults and are some of the smartest people I know. So it depends on what your child needs and you really need to look at that, and that's why I am huge proponent of this, and so I was sorry to see this bill go down, but it brings me, now that I've spoken, my piece. It brings me around to you know we're going to be in session in a year. What do you think might, I hope, sell this in Texas legislatively? Are there tweaks or fixes?

Genevieve Collins:

Well, I think the first part, and thank you for sharing that, andy, you absolutely hit the nail on the head. A child's ability and aptitudes are uniquely their own, and every parent wants to honor those, to ensure that their child is not only a contributing member to society but one that thrives Right. So the way we change this is to first go out and make sure we have better legislators, and so, afp, we are not only involved in policy and building authentic grassroots communities, but we're also involved in electing better policy champions, and so we now have a list of folks that we believe that voted against school choice and that we're talking to and that we excuse me that we've looked to identify better challenger candidates, folks that are already aligned on this policy but and already believe uniquely that every child matters and regardless of where the four walls of which a child is within whether that's public, private, charter, homeschool, micro school, learning pod doesn't matter the atmosphere, it matters that the child has the option. So we're focused first on changing the electoral map and getting legislators who don't believe in those things out, so we can get better folks in, because the future of Texas matters far too much to not be involved in the actual political fight. So first it's change out the legislature and we're focused on three specific candidates Hillary Hickland, in HD 55, she's challenging Hugh Shine, joanne Schoffner I think that's HD 12, she's challenging Travis Clarty and Mark LaHood, who's in HD 121, which is in San Antonio, and he is challenging Steve Allison. So those are our challenger candidates.

Genevieve Collins:

We interviewed these folks extensively, in addition to having their own candidate surveys, changing those folks out, plus the retirements that have happened. And how do we fill those seats with better school choice, aligned candidates, which we're doing? We have three candidates that we're supporting that all believe in school choice there. So changing the map is really how we change school choice first, and then our goal to have a bill next session would be that every child would have access, regardless of socioeconomic level. We wanna make sure that kids that are trapped in failing public schools have better options. Those are the kids that get priority. We don't wanna just pay for already rich kids to go to private schools. That's not the point. We wanna make sure that more kids have the opportunity, even if they're lower on the priority list.

Andi Turner:

That's literally choice.

Genevieve Collins:

Schools right students with disabilities. So that's what we're really focused on is having a large aperture of students having the option and then having enough money to follow the child. The fact is that and we can talk about this till the cows come home but the fact is is that school districts, the system, is set up to protect itself and it's about the funding and not the child, and that is a huge personal issue for me. But the reality of giving students school and parents school choice is that not every parent is gonna take that option. Plenty of parents are really happy with their public school and so what we see the data shows. Whether it's in Florida who's done it for 20 years, or a number of these other states, the data proves that there's not this mass exodus from public schools. 95% of the kids stay in public schools. You know this isn't some mass exodus across the state, but it's giving parents a better voice and it's giving students a better future. That's awesome.

Andi Turner:

I love it. I love it. Choice, choice, choose, choose for what's right, right for your kid. That is so important, and Garrett and I have talked about this issue a number of times and I think the predominant viewpoint on this is that, oh, you're taking money away from the public schools. Well, that's not really how that works. You know when the legislators or the county, you know when the schools go to the county and say give us our budget, right.

Andi Turner:

I've seen it happen where they've said, oh, we need, you know, all new Spanish books and we need this and we need that, and so here's our budget from, you know, from the county. And then what happens is the county says, okay, here's all the money you need, right. And then they go off and they give raises to the people at the Board of Education and the children individually, or the classroom teachers don't see the benefits of this Right, and that's hard. That's hard on the teachers, it's hard on the students, it's hard on the parents, and so I love that AFP is fighting for the parents right to have a say and thank you so much, right back at you.

Garrett Fulce:

One of the questions I had about this, or just one comment I want to make about it, is that school choice, like so many issues when it comes to politics, what we talk about on podcasts like this and the op-ed pages on Twitter or Facebook or wherever is typically pretty much completely divorced from what's actually happening on the ground and what's actually happening in the bill itself and the fact that this is an issue, like you said, that's been going around in Texas since the 90s. This has been debated.

Garrett Fulce:

I think the issue itself probably goes back to the probably the 80s yeah 70s and 80s, but in the audience it's kind of come up in Texas about every six to eight years since the 90s and what the fights are happening are just rehashes and it's a kind of a. It's a collage of different bills or ideas of bills and different states and everything going on and different arguments against, straw-me-in arguments and this and the other. All of that to say is you have a Frankenstein monster of sorts of arguments when it comes to school choice, where it's really hard to actually drill down and figure out what are the benefits of a particular policy going forward, especially when it's 200 pages long. It's in an omnibus, the way it was packaged. It's really hard to kind of break through that kind of pre-built noise. It's actually have a conversation on the merits of a given policy. Yeah, that said, do you think with the retirements and the possible success of different challenger candidates, do you think that there will be school choice in Texas after the 89th session?

Genevieve Collins:

I am an eternal optimist. It's just my makeup of who I am and I can tell you that we're going to push all the chips in across AFP to make sure that this happens. So my goal is that on Sineaday, may 31st, 2025, texas has school choice and breaks the watershed or the log jam for the rest of the country to then get school choice across all of these other states. And I think my last comment on this, really, guys, is that if 52% of our students can currently read in 4th grade and 8th grade, if only 52% of our students can read on grade level, at or above grade level, and only 43% of our students in 4th and 8th grade can do math at or above grade level, we clearly need to look at other options to ensure that our children are learning. The data proves that what we're doing isn't working. So let's actually stop the infighting and let's start focusing on children.

Genevieve Collins:

That is key and that's most important, because there are people there's 1300 people moving to Texas every single day. We need to have an incredibly educated workforce. We need to have a highly motivated future workforce. We need people to be college, career and military ready, and right now that's not happening. If Texas is truly going to lead the country in terms of innovation, whether it's in financial services, energy technology name your industry. Texas has the opportunity to lead the country for the next 100 years and if we fail the next generation in their ability to read and write and critically think towards the future of this country, we are letting Texas down currently and towards future generations, and that is something that we just won't tolerate.

Andi Turner:

Absolutely. That's why you're the head of Texas AFP. Way to go, well done.

Garrett Fulce:

Well, that's the biggest issue in the races that you all are looking at, but probably the biggest issue across the whole of the 45 Challenge races and probably the biggest issue in the general election is going to be immigration. I know AFP has taken a strong stance. Do you want to explain a little bit about what stance you all have taken and then what sort of initiatives you all are pushing?

Genevieve Collins:

Sure so, americans for Prosperity. We have always been for border security and you know we get attacked on frivolous attacks One of my, as I was listening to your podcast episode from last week with Jerry Patterson he was talking about. There are certain groups out there on the right that are just lying about candidates and lying about policy positions, and we are being attacked by those same groups for supporting a position that we do not have, which is the position on. We do not support amnesty. I was a congressional candidate for Congress. I don't support amnesty Never have but they've never supported amnesty Right.

Genevieve Collins:

I've been following him for years and I think that we do and whatever like they're trying to just stir up the echo chamber, I suppose but what we're really focused?

Garrett Fulce:

on, it sells whatever they sell. On that day it gets clicks.

Genevieve Collins:

Well, and so what we're focused on is, instead of, you know, stirring the hornet's nest of people that are already angry about what the inaction on the border is. Well, what we've done is actually say wait a second, let's take a step back and let's realize that AFP is uniquely positioned to not only help support and help write border policy on terms of how do we construct meaningful barriers, how do we invest in technology, how do we reform the asylum loopholes and how do we elect more judges. We're working on those policies at the federal level, at the state level, how do we help support funding for border security and border barriers, things of that nature? So we're the tip of the spear on the policy side, but we are also uniquely positioned across the country, because AFP has 50 state chapters and turns out Texas. We have the largest border, and so why don't we bring in people from across the country? These are activists, these are media folks, these are volunteers, and these are people across the country that really care about the border.

Genevieve Collins:

But what does someone in New Hampshire know about Texas border policy, what the Canadians are invading? Are they terrified of that? No, so why don't we bring people here and show them so that they can become border evangelists for Texas and across the rest of the country. So while everyone's talking about the inaction at the border, we are deputizing border evangelists to go back to their states and showcase what good border security and border policy needs to be, so that way every state understands the need and understands how they are a part excuse me, how they are also a border state, and so we're really bringing the policy and the grassroots together, which I think is going to make a much more meaningful impact.

Genevieve Collins:

And then you compound that with all of my personal op-eds. I've been on the news in Britain talking about it, talking about how awful Kamala Harris is as the border czar. She's only been to El Paso. She refuses to go to Eagle Pass, del Rio, mcallen the areas that are getting hit the worst. So I have been very vocal about border policy and making sure that AFP can use its brand name to actually pass meaningful policy and put some heat on all of these members of Congress across the country to actually get something done.

Garrett Fulce:

I feel like a lot of organizations that get involved on elections don't necessarily get involved on the policy side. And then also vice versa, you may have an endorsement or something, but you don't typically have an organization that will send thousands of volunteers that go knock on doors or thousands more, to go to talk to a legislator, while also working hand in hand with legislators to write legislation or to create model legislation or whatever the case may be. I think AFP it's not necessarily unique, but it is a rare breed in that it does both of those things. What and you'll do it effectively Would you say that you're hearing at the doors? Would you say that the feedback you're getting is going to be more on immigration than anything else? What are the top issues that you're hearing about when you're talking about it, and does that kind of information impact or create a feedback for y'all to kind of show you what areas you want to focus on on the policy side?

Genevieve Collins:

You're absolutely hit the nail on the head. These are mutually reinforcing concepts. Our work on policy mutually reinforces how we approach our political action work. Things are not mutually exclusive.

Genevieve Collins:

So what we're seeing at the doors is also geographically dependent. Right here in North Texas I live in Dallas, but in North Texas border security is by far the number one issue. You kind of see that overall across the state of Texas Border security is a top two issue. In some areas that may be a little bit more rural, education is a top issue, specifically school choice.

Genevieve Collins:

And then what we're seeing as the third major issue and specifically around what's interesting is specifically around military bases, healthcare is a top issue and we see healthcare is usually a top three issue at the general election, not as much in the primary elections but now Republican candidates are starting to become more vocal about the need to talk about healthcare and reclaim healthcare policy and so we're seeing that there's more of an appetite and less of a reluctance to talking about healthcare and really meeting communities where they're at.

Genevieve Collins:

So I would say it's really immigration, school choice and then healthcare are the top issues and then I would kind of wrap all of that together in a bow that, while we're a bit insulated here in Texas with a great economy, inflation and what's happening with bidenomics kind of globally or nationally wrap around that everyone is feeling like they're paying more and getting less because of these bidenomics policies. So, while that's not necessarily a big primary issue, it's something that people are feeling, physically feeling in their pocketbooks and they're talking about, but there's not really much to do on state policy regarding bidenomics.

Garrett Fulce:

Okay, well, we've talked at length on school choice, yeah, and we've talked a little bit about immigration you just mentioned. Healthcare is probably number three. What sort of healthcare? At least in my political life having been involved since 2007, is dominated by conversations around Obamacare, either what I mean they'll run up to the 2008 election and then pass it to the ACA, and then everything that's happened in the past 16 years. So what's the next step? There's a lot of issues with healthcare. Everyone has had a problem with the healthcare system, but there are obviously solutions. Most of the solutions that we hear about come from the left. What are some solutions to these problems that people have with healthcare? Are is AFP proposing, kind of from the right side of the aisle?

Genevieve Collins:

We're sorry.

Genevieve Collins:

So this is something I personally care about. I'm gonna tell you all two quick stories and I'll make them speedy, but then I'll talk about the policy. So when I was running for Congress March 3rd of 2020, I won my primary outright. I was running against five other men. They're wonderful, but I won my primary outright in Texas, which was awesome, and then two weeks later, the world shut down.

Genevieve Collins:

So for all of the listeners, I highly recommend not running for office during a global pandemic, but outside of that, what was interesting is that I was on a call with Republican congressional leadership at the time, right when the pandemic first started, and they said, to quote whatever you do, don't talk about healthcare. It is a losing issue for conservatives, it's a losing issue for Republicans, so don't talk about it. And I thought have you put like watched the news at all? Right, right, they don't make people talking about like hello, right. And I just thought I'm not gonna be a tone deaf candidate. I just that's not how I act and operate anyways. But furthermore, we're gonna talk about it and we can't continue to just say repeal and replace Obamacare. That's not happening. We are clearly way too far into this entitlement now that we now have to come up with other options. Second story 20 days before the 2020 election, I had appendicitis. Like I guess, the stress finally got to me and I physically reacted by having an appendix rupture.

Garrett Fulce:

That's a lot of stress, I know right and a rupture is bad.

Andi Turner:

It's really bad.

Genevieve Collins:

And I'm not gonna go into all the details. I wrote a pretty specific op ad about it. But what happened is basically I had a rupture at the hospital, didn't treat it in time because they had to wait for a COVID test, and so I had a infection grow where the rupture happened before they took out my appendix, put me back in the hospital a week later and I went into septic shock because of this. So I was almost died before the election and then, right after I lost the election, I got a $33,000 surprise bill for a basically a biff from the hospital, for basically a in my opinion, having malpractice not taking out my appendix when it needed to happen and B. Now I'm being charged for extra hospital stays because I went into septic shock under their watch.

Genevieve Collins:

So I am now a hardcore advocate for healthcare transparency and holding hospitals accountable, and so that's really shaped how I see healthcare and how we are talking about it at AFP, because we want patients to be informed, we want patients to be to know what their costs are upfront, and we want patients to be shoppers, we want them to be empowered. So we're proposing and we help pass a multitude of bills last session on itemized billing, where a hospital has to give you an itemized bill before you get, before you receive the service. If they don't give you a bill, an itemized bill in common language, then they cannot send you to debt collection and currently in Texas six out of ten Texans have some form of medical debt. That is exorbitant and we've got to claim that back.

Andi Turner:

And you know I was gonna say before you mentioned it yeah, I get an itemized bill, but I don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense to me, you know, and so like okay, ublega Chmatzi taught $350.

Genevieve Collins:

Yeah, if you can fundamentally found it out, that's already a good starting point for what you got. But you're right, and so we've really focused on price transparency. We also really focused on increasing access to more doctors and the services that people need. So, looking at direct primary care, looking at how do we have more nurses whether that scope of practice work or how do we have more doctors, and looking at rural residency apprenticeships how do we start solving the access question while reducing the cost of care, again through direct primary care or through hospital site neutrality, where hospitals are.

Genevieve Collins:

Basically they own multiple facilities but at each facility you can pay a different cost and usually they're all higher costs instead of a consistent cost. So I really feel like at AFP, what we're trying to do is really be a watchdog for all Texans. It doesn't matter whether you're an R or a D or rural or urban, doesn't matter where you live. You deserve great health care at a cost you can afford and at a price you know. And so we're really focused on those pieces price transparency, banning anti-comp, repetitive practices, making sure that out-of-pocket expenses can pay for your can go towards your deductible all of these things we helped pass last year and we're looking to expand.

Garrett Fulce:

And Not to get. Go ahead.

Andi Turner:

Andy, and rural healthcare is something that I am very familiar with for many years and I would say it's equally important. You know, I know a friend of mine was looking for a mental health person for their child and where they live there was only one person. Yeah, and like, we managed to figure out how to get teachers out to the rural areas and I can tell you from experience that there were grants that said, hey, we'll pay for your college education if you agree to spend four years in underserved communities, which were all mostly rural areas, right and so like. To me it's like well, why aren't we doing something like that in, you know, far east and far west Texas? You know we need that and they need some kind of choice. You can't have one primary care physician to serve the entire I don't know three counties in east Texas. You gotta have, you gotta have.

Garrett Fulce:

Well, and I'm gonna echo on that, a lot of what we see in some rural things and other parts of the country are situations where there's a certificate of need and there's a I'm able to kind of create a local or regional monopoly. Is that something that's happening in Texas to a large extent, and is that something that AFP is working for or against, or do you know?

Genevieve Collins:

I do know so while Texas passed or we got rid of certificate of need laws in Texas like in the 80s. But what's happening now is this massive hospital consolidation across the marketplace. So Baylor-Scottenwhite, for example I'm looking at their hospital right now. They're buying, they're consolidating the marketplace and this is not just Baylor-Scottenwhite, it's a number of hospitals. They're consolidating the market and they're going into suburban and rural communities and they're now, basically, they've taken over a private practice from a doctor or they've created a hospital outpatient department. It's basically like an extended clinic. They're charging 14 to 58% more per service once they acquire this new practice. The only thing that has changed from their acquisition of this practice is the name on the door. They're charging, they're surcharging, they're upcharging patients in different communities different prices than what they would charge at their big hospital campus. They're charging exponentially more for the same service in different areas of Texas.

Genevieve Collins:

We're actively fighting that. We think that that's not. It's untruthful and it's unfair to consumers, especially those that live in rural or more rural communities. These people get hurt first and worst, usually on most policies, and someone needs to be their advocate and champion. So that's going to be us, turns out. It's also a large coalition of folks that are focused on this. We want to see consistency in pricing, we want pricing to be transparent and we want to make sure that patients have access to care at a cost that they can afford. These are not provocative concepts. This is not an R versus a D, this is a. How do we make Texas a better place for people to live and ensure that they can have a high quality of life?

Andi Turner:

Do you know offhand? I'm throwing this out of left field, so if you don't know, it's fine. But what are they saying is the reason for these upcharges?

Genevieve Collins:

I do know a little bit that it costs them more. They're not able to recoup as many costs once they buy these doctor's practices in different areas. You'll have to talk to the hospital associations. They'll give you exactly their talking points. We just don't think that their talking points reflect what Texans actually need.

Andi Turner:

I agree, I agree. And if you're in a rural area and they went, obviously if they bought that practice, they saw it as a moneymaker. It was surviving just fine. So if you buy this and maybe you upgrade the equipment or whatever, of course you have the right to recoup the money for the upgraded equipment and I got no issues with you there but you don't get to upcharge on every service and for every Literally everything that happens. That's not right. I mean, what are these hospitals saying? What are these large hospitals saying oh, if you don't live in an urban area, the heck with you.

Genevieve Collins:

I mean basically, and Andy, what is happening? This is not just a Texas problem. This is how you know, pollution-wide. Oh, I know, washington State, oregon, massachusetts, North Carolina, they've all passed bills at the state legislature to create that consistency. That's something that AFP next year during the 89th legislative session. We want to spearhead and work on that to make sure that there's truth in hospital pricing. But we also see that there's an appetite shockingly a bipartisan appetite to work on this in Washington DC At the Senate level. There's a bill called the SITE Act. It's SITE-based Invoicing Transparency Enforcement Act. What a mouthful that is. But the SITE Act.

Garrett Fulce:

They love our acronyms in the cars.

Genevieve Collins:

But there's a companion bill in the House that's called the FAIR Act and it's a bipartisan bill in both chambers, so this is an opportunity for Republicans to lean in. In my opinion, to say this is irregardless of partisanship Everyone deserves access to great care at a cost they can afford and knowing the prices of their services before they get those services rendered.

Garrett Fulce:

Yeah Well, Genevieve, thank you so much for joining us today. Before we let you go, is there any? Where can we find more information about you, AFP, Texas, etc. About more resources, about what you all are doing today?

Genevieve Collins:

Well, guys, thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure. Folks, you can find me on Twitter at I guess it's called X now I guess I'll always call it Twitter, but my handle is at G Collins, tx. Our state chapter handle it's at Texas AFP. Please follow us, please like it, please share our content. We're always promoting local politics, we're promoting local policies and we're really trying to keep more Texans informed with a positive, solution-centered message, so that way, you can actively get engaged, versus just shout into the wind. We want to help give people a microphone to be the change that they want to see, and you can go to our website, wwwamericansforprosperityorg, and you can find all of our petitions, all of our points of view, and you can find us there. That's awesome.

Garrett Fulce:

Thank you so much. Go ahead, garrett. Yeah, thank you so much. Well, everybody, thank you for joining us as well. If you're listening to us on the audio podcast, please go ahead and follow us on YouTube at the Seeing Red Pod so you can watch the video with us and Genevieve and whomever we have next week. Come live and watch it. It's a lot of fun over here on the YouTube side and then vice versa. Follow us wherever you can follow us. We appreciate you joining us. If you want to send us an email, it's hosts h-o-s-t-s at the Seeing Red at SeeingRedPodcastcom. Sorry, hosts at SeeingRedPodcastcom, and we really appreciate you joining us this week and we'll see you next week. Thanks, guys.

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