Interests of a 65-Year-Old
A 65-year-old's interests are Social Security, Medicare, prescription-drug pricing, rural-hospital availability, elder-care quality (nursing homes, in-home services), and protection against age-targeted scams. Both candidates have limited direct authority over federal Social Security/Medicare. On state-level levers: Abbott has touted $1.4B in federal rural-health funding and $239M in HHSC mental-health construction grants — real wins for the 65-year-old. But the IDD-institutionalization lawsuit and Medicaid-refusal hurt the lower-income elderly. Hinojosa's Medicaid-expansion priority directly benefits the 65-year-old (especially for those between job loss and Medicare eligibility), her anti-private-equity-healthcare framing targets nursing-home consolidation, and her water-reliability priority matters for fixed-income retirees. Both candidates pick up partial credit; Hinojosa moderately closer on the healthcare-and-pricing strands.
Sources
- Office of the Governor, 'Governor Abbott announces historic $1.4 billion in federal funding secured for rural Texas Strong projects.' (full list)
- Office of the Governor, 'Governor Abbott announces $239 million in construction grants for mental health care in rural Texas,' March 2025. (full list)
- Governing, 'Texas governor still won't expand Medicaid,' archived analysis of Abbott's repeated rejection of Medicaid expansion. (full list)
- Texas Tribune, 'Federal judge: Texas illegally institutionalizing people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,' June 20, 2025. (full list)
- The Arc of Texas, 'Medicaid waivers' resource page — IDD waiver waitlists and home-and-community-based services data. (full list)