HOUSTON - The cutting edge treatments and renowned doctors here at the Texas Medical Center draw Arab sheiks and former first ladies to gleaming facilities adorned with spraying fountains and aquariums. Billed as the world’s largest medical campus, the towering glass and sandstone buildings house 14 hospitals and three medical schools, spread across 14 square blocks. But for the more than 6 million Texans without health insurance, these world-class institutions remain largely out of reach. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country - 24.6 percent - and the number of uninsured that has grown by 35 percent during Governor Rick Perry’s 11-year tenure. And here in Harris County, which includes Houston, the state’s largest city, the picture is even more troubling: One out of three people lacks insurance.
“This is ground zero in the health care disaster,’’ said Dr. Leonard Zwelling, an oncologist at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. “Houston is such a rich city, with some of the best medical care in the world. . . . And yet the people without insurance have a heck of a time getting into most of these facilities because they can’t pay.’’
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