(Texas News Service) For the past five years, Texans' priorities for improving health care have not changed, but in the latest survey, the need for more mental health programs ranks higher on the list of what would enhance their lives.

The poll, conducted in late 2022 by the Episcopal Health Foundation, showed almost two-thirds of Texans support increased state spending on health care; the highest percentage in five years.

Brian Sasser, chief communications officer for the Foundation, said Texans are looking to state leaders for help to improve health outcomes.

"Sixty-seven percent of Texans, when you ask them about what their top health care priorities should be, they either say it should be lowering prescription costs, reducing what it costs to get health care or increasing access to health insurance," Sasser reported.

Sasser noted the survey, conducted annually since 2018, found the largest support ever for Medicaid expansion, at 72 percent. Texas is one of a handful of states where lawmakers have rejected the federal option. 

Texans said they are missing out on basic health services because of cost, according to Sasser.

"Things that I think folks with health insurance take for granted," Sasser outlined. "Just getting a checkup or getting a cancer screening, or getting help for your diabetes -- those folks can't go to the doctor to get that, because they can't afford it and they don't have health insurance."

The COVID-19 pandemic made many more Americans seek out mental health services, and Texans were no exception. Sasser noted more than half of those surveyed said increased funding for the programs should be the state's most pressing health care matter. 

"One of the things we found in this survey that was new, was that more than a quarter, 27 percent of Texans said they had difficulty in the past year getting mental-health treatment for themselves or someone in their household," Sasser emphasized. "That's the highest number in the five-year history of our poll."

The poll also found Texans believe reducing the number of women who die from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth should be a top health care priority for the state.