Texas Attorney General, and U.S. Senate candidate, Ken Paxton waves to supporters during a primary election night watch party on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Dallas.
Smiley N. Pool/Dallas Morning News
Have you heard the good news? After years of allowing a large hospital system to abuse its power to keep prices high and block insurance companies from offering lower cost, high quality options, the state attorney general finally stood up for patients and filed an anti-trust lawsuit in February. The U.S. Department of Justice signed on, too. It couldn’t come at a more critical moment. Since 2000, hospital prices have increased three times faster than inflation and twice as fast as wage growth
“When competition is blocked, consumers end up being the biggest losers. My office stands with the Justice Department in our determination to eliminate these types of unfair practices,” the attorney general said at the time.
Unfortunately, that’s not really good news for Texans. Because that was Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, not our guy, Ken Paxton. No, Paxton’s busy settling important lawsuits against Texas Children’s Hospital for providing gender-affirming healthcare to children (whose parents consented).
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In Ohio, the attorney general makes sure everyday patients aren’t being ripped off while seeking critical care. In Texas, we get more culture wars.
And bizarre niche battles like Paxton’s crusade against Tylenol and children’s toothpaste.
That’s too bad. Because lowering healthcare prices is the most important issue for Texas voters, according to polling by Texas 2036.
Instead of addressing prices, Paxton is targeting a small percent of a small percent of people. As part of the settlement with Texas Children’s, he is requiring the hospital to fire “five woke doctors” and open a first-of-its-kind “detransition clinic.” Paxton touted the settlement as historic, saying it “reflects an institutional and fundamental cultural shift away from radical ‘gender’ ideology.”
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Sorry if your emergency room visit bankrupts you, but at least we’re protected from radical gender ideology?
What do we have to do to get an attorney general like Yost? Ohio is a red state, too. There, the Trump administration heartily signed on “to protect consumers and drive down healthcare costs across America.”
Can that include Texas? Maybe?
Texas Children’s, meanwhile, maintained that it hadn’t broken any laws. But it had its own reasons to end the lawsuit: “To be clear – we are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation. This settlement will allow us to redirect those precious resources to focus on the life-saving care and groundbreaking discoveries of our exceptional clinicians and scientists.”
Unlike Paxton apparently, hospitals do actually have important stuff to do. Like treating kids with cancer and saving premature babies.
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Fortunately, Texas has other politicians capable of leading reform. Just this week, Republican Rep. James Frank actually filed a class action lawsuit against Blue Cross Blue Shield, alleging that the company misrepresented costs and effectively overcharged patients. Frank has also been leading the new House Select Committee on Health Care Affordability. It has been refreshing to watch lawmakers meet and seriously discuss the systemic causes of ballooning healthcare costs during the legislative interim. Last session, a couple of bills that would’ve made hospital consolidations more transparent and easier for the state to challenge failed. Hopefully, those efforts can be revived next session.
In a market as twisted up as our healthcare system, the state absolutely has a role in making sure we have actual competition working on behalf of everyday Texans seeking care. And there seems to be growing bipartisan consensus around this. Up in Washington, even folks as far apart as Reps. Chip Roy and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are getting tough about the root causes of unaffordable healthcare.
Meanwhile, Paxton keeps his focus on trans issues. Maybe our state’s next attorney general will care about making healthcare affordable for everyday Texans.
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No Texan should have reason to be jealous of Ohio.