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Open enrollment for insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act marketplace started this month. Millions of Texans currently use a marketplace plan, and here in Austin, folks are navigating uncertainty as premiums rise and federal subsidies expire.
State officials finally released a hoard of documents and emails between Elon Musk and Gov. Greg Abbott’s office – and a majority of the information was redacted. We’ve got more about the files and the story from The Texas Newsroom.
The Paramount and State Theatres in downtown Austin are raising funds for a major restoration that will include updated seating and new spaces. We hear more about what they’ve got planned for the future.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:09] Open enrollment for insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act marketplace started this month. Millions of Texans currently use a marketplace plan. And here in Austin, folks are navigating a bit of uncertainty amid their enrollment. We’ve got that. Plus, state officials finally released a horde of documents and emails between Elon Musk and Governor Greg Abbott’s office. More than a thousand pages were included, but a majority of the information within the He just was blacked out and redacted. We’ve got more about the files and the story from the Texas newsroom that is coming up.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:41] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:46] And the Paramount and State Theaters in downtown Austin are raising funds for a major restoration. Come hear the ideas they’ve got planned for the future. That’s next here on Austin Signal. Howdy, this is Austin Signal, I’m Jerry E. Connell. Thank you for being with us today. It’s Thursday, November 20th, and it’s shaping up to be a rainy one here in central Texas. Travis Hayes and Williamson Counties are currently under a flood watch until Friday morning at 6 o’clock. So have a few ways of staying weather aware. You know this Texas weather loves to turn on a dime. A few quick headlines for you today. The Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees will vote tonight on a highly contested plan to close 10 schools and make several major programming changes ahead of the next school year. The district says the plan will generate $20 million in savings if it passes. The board meeting starts at 6 p.m. And the Austin City Council could vote as soon as today on a new smaller city budget. Among the priorities for a number of council members are funding for EMS, homelessness reduction, and mental health outreach teams. Open enrollment for insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act marketplace began this month. Nearly four million Texans currently have a marketplace plan, but many of them are being confronted with higher premiums this year. KUT’s Olivia Aldridge spoke with Austinites who are navigating this uncertain open enrollment season.
Olivia Aldridge [00:02:25] Plans. At the Prosper Health Coverage Center off I-35 in South Austin, volunteers and specialists are busy manning the phones and meeting in person, with Texans looking for free assistance enrolling in health insurance. One of those clients is Brita Lee, who asked to use her first and middle name for privacy reasons. When she learned her current marketplace plan would be more expensive next year, she decided to shop for other options.
Brita Lee [00:02:50] It meant that we had to scramble to find me a plan that even gives me close to the amount of coverage I had before, which means half of my doctors I have now I won’t be able to go to next year.
Olivia Aldridge [00:03:02] She was able to find a plan she can afford, but her monthly payment will still be higher this year. She says that means trimming an already tight household budget. Yeah, it just means like anything fun that we want to do, it has to be free and we cannot travel at all. Lee isn’t alone. In states like Texas that use healthcare.gov, insurers are charging around 30% more next year. That’s according to an analysis from the nonpartisan health policy organization, KFF. But that’s not the only reason people are seeing higher costs. Certain federal subsidies that help offset premiums are expiring, too. Most Americans, depending on their income, get what’s called a premium tax credit. Back in 2021, the Biden administration increased those tax credits, giving a lot of poorer households more support and giving some middle-income earners a subsidy for the first time. But that increase is set to go away in January. That means costs will more than double for many consumers. Erica Leos is the director of Prosper Programs at Foundation Communities. She’s been fielding a lot of questions about these changes.
Erica Leos [00:04:09] People were worried and just had questions about, well, how does this affect my plan and my situation? Okay.
Olivia Aldridge [00:04:16] It depends on the person and the household. Many will still get some amount of federal support, but lower subsidies combined with higher costs from the insurer are a double whammy that some families may struggle to afford. Take Ashley Velasquez, a self-employed nonprofit consultant in Austin. She would have to pay a thousand more dollars a month to keep the same Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance plan next year for her family of five. I don’t see how we could do that. It is more than our mortgage. Looking through the marketplace, Velazquez found that her primary care provider and her kid’s pediatrician weren’t in network with some of the lower cost plans. There are other trade-offs too. Lower premiums sometimes mean high deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. So when you start looking at the total cost, it’s really hard to compare like apples to apples. She’s also considering a plan that would cost just shy of $1,000 per month. That’s about 200 more than she’s used to, but she’d get similar benefits to what she currently has. And peace of mind should one of her three healthy kids get sick or hurt. If somebody falls off the m-
Erica Leos [00:05:21] bars and breaks an arm, we need to be able to take them to the emergency room and know that they’re going to get care that’s going to be covered by a health…
Olivia Aldridge [00:05:29] There’s still a chance Congress could vote to extend the enhanced tax credits in December. Getting that vote on the Senate docket was part of the deal Democrats made to end the federal government shutdown earlier this month. But many Republicans are still resistant, citing the estimated $350 billion, the enhanced to tax credits, would cost the federal over the next decade. Heading into enrollment season, Leos was concerned that all this uncertainty at the federal level, result in a lot of folks forgoing health insurance altogether. Experts at Texas A&M have estimated hundreds of thousands of Texans might do so.
Erica Leos [00:06:06] That was one of the things we were kind of worried about that people might choose either not to enroll at all or decide before even checking for prices and plans.
Olivia Aldridge [00:06:15] So far, she says most of her clients at the Prosper Center are choosing a plan, even if their budget takes a hit. Folks have until December 15th to enroll for coverage. That begins January 1st. I’m Olivia Aldrich in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:35] After fighting to keep secret a trove of documents between Governor Greg Abbott’s office and Elon Musk, state officials recently released some 1,400 documents. But only about one in every seven pages actually had any kind of information that wasn’t redacted or blacked out. This work, this record’s request, is a collaboration between the Texas newsroom, the Texas Tribune, and ProPublica. Lauren Magahi is an investigative reporter and editor at the Texas Newsroom. She’s with us now in Austin Signal. Hi, Lauren.
Lauren McGaughey [00:07:08] Hey, how are you?
Jerry Quijano [00:07:09] I’m doing good, how are you? Good. We’re glad to have you in the studio. So I want to start by saying these documents are the result of a public records request that was filed back in April. Take us back. Why were you all seeking out these documents in the first place?
Lauren McGaughey [00:07:21] Sure. You know, this was part of an effort to just better understand Elon Musk’s influence in the Texas Capitol. I feel like there was a lot of attention on Washington, D.C. With the Doge effort, but not a lot people were looking here closer to home and he’s moved most of his headquarters of his businesses here into the Austin area. We all know he has this big launch pad down near Brownsville and no one seemed to be looking at the capital and what he was trying to do there so We filed this to see what’s his relationship like with the governor and the governor’s office. And it seemed like a pretty easy question to answer at the time.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:59] It seems like it, but what did you encounter? What did you get back?
Lauren McGaughey [00:08:03] Uh… Well it was a month months long saga took five months uh… Couple hundred dollars uh… For us to actually get to the end of this thing and we were taken to the a g so the governor didn’t want to release these records he he had a lot of reasons why but he wants the attorney general who kind of referees these disputes and asked him to give him the permission to keep them all secret the attorney-general uh… Then took a couple of months and then issued this decision. That said, okay, you can keep some of this stuff secret, and then you have to release certain documents. And then we waited to see what we would get back, and we eventually got about 1,400 pages from the governor’s office that were emails either with Elon Musk or people from his companies.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:48] This might be a little bit in the weeds, but in the story, it’s mentioned that you paid a $244 check, I believe. Is that normal? For our listeners out there, you know, they know maybe about FOIAs and they know about public records requests. Is it normal that you have to pony up a little money to get the state to search out some of these documents.
Lauren McGaughey [00:09:05] It depends. It’s totally up to the agency you’re asking. So like you could file a record request with any public entity, right? Like your city council person, your county commissioner. And if they think that they’re gonna have to sink in significant staff time to either gather the records or redact the records, they can charge you if it’s over a certain dollar amount. And what was unusual in this case, it’s something that I’m seeing happen more and more, is they’ll give you a cost estimate usually, and they’ll say, hey, can you pay 50% of this? And then. Will produce the records, and then maybe you have to pay the other 50%. In this case, the governor’s office asked for 100% payment upfront. So $244.64, I will not forget that, because it came out of my checking account initially. And then they actually, after the fact, said, you know what, we think these records are actually all private, and we’re going to ask the attorney general to allow us to withhold them after they cash that check. So those two things appear to be coming more of a pattern with agencies across the state asking for 100% payment upfront and then saying, okay, just kidding, we’re not gonna release any records at all.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:13] In the story, it’s also noted that it seems to be becoming more common as well, the increasing difficulty that there is when it comes to accessing these sorts of documents. Why is that the case?
Lauren McGaughey [00:10:24] Yeah, this is particularly difficult with records about government’s interactions with private businesses. So we talked to some experts who said this is part of a pattern they’ve seen over the last 10 years, where it’s getting harder and harder to get information from governmental entities about partnerships they’re doing with with corporations, tax exemptions, all these kinds of things that involve public money, public projects, but a private Corporation. And that’s because corporations have the right, as they should probably, right, to say, hey, we don’t want some of this information out in the public domain. It may involve trade secrets, proprietary information. Under the guise of-
Jerry Quijano [00:11:02] Under the guise of competition.
Lauren McGaughey [00:11:03] Right, competition. But what is happening is they’re seeking broader and broader exemptions, more and more withholding of records. And some of that may relate to money that is taxpayer money being spent in these projects. So it’s becoming harder and harder to get that, according to experts and the experience of a lot of us that work in this space. And we saw that with this 1,400 pages we got from the governor’s office. It wasn’t really 1, 400 pages at the end of the day. Was.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:31] It wasn’t that much at all, right?
Lauren McGaughey [00:11:33] No, I mean, there was only a couple hundred pages. So we got 1,400 pages, took five months.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:37] You did actually get 1,400 pages.
Lauren McGaughey [00:11:38] We got a PDF with about 1,400 pages, 1,374 pages. And I was like, whoa, that’s a lot. OK, cool. Let’s see what’s in here. And I started scrolling, and almost every page was completely redacted. So totally blacked out, not even one readable word on it. And there was a note at the top of one of the pages that had cited a state law about competition, saying, these pages are redacting because it involves competition or bidding information. There were about 200 pages that were unredacted, but a lot of them were like old corporate records that have been out in the public domain for a long time. Some of them where public requests, or public records requests, including my own requests were in there. And so the 200 pages we did get didn’t really give us, didn’t answer that question we had, which is what is his influence, what is Elon Musk’s influence in the state capitol and what is this relationship like with the governor and the governor’s office? Tweet. We weren’t able to really glean anything additionally from the records.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:39] Lauren, did you get any additional comment or information from Elon Musk or from Governor Greg Abbott’s office about why these documents were so redacted?
Lauren McGaughey [00:12:48] We asked both of them for comment. Elon Musk and his representatives didn’t respond to any of our emails. The governor did give us a statement and his spokesman said that the governor follows open records laws and he makes sure to release everything that isn’t confidential. So stuck by it.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:06] So that leads me to my last question for you. Is there any recourse? You get 1,400 pages. You’ve already paid $244, but you really only have about 200 pages worth of information. What steps can the Texas Newsroom, the Texas Review, and ProPublica, what happens next?
Lauren McGaughey [00:13:22] So we asked the attorney general to reconsider his decision in allowing the number of documents that he let the governor’s office just completely withhold. So we said, hey, can you take another look at this decision you made and make sure that all of these pages they wanna withhold are actually proprietary trade secrets, those kinds of things. Those requests are not usually honored. They usually stick by their decisions, but it’s one of the only recourses. People that have a problem with an open records decision can also sue, but it’s expensive. And again, you may not win and you might sink a lot of time and money into it. So right now we’re just seeing what the attorney general is gonna say to our request.
Jerry Quijano [00:14:03] OK, this story is a collaboration between the Texas Newsroom, the Texas Tribune, and ProPublica. You can read it right now at kut.org. Lauren Magocchi is an investigative reporter and editor at the Texas Newsroom. Lauren, thank you for your time. You’re welcome. Thank you out there for spending part of your Thursday here with Austin signal We are listener-powered public radio and in case you want to catch up on any of the episodes you might have missed this week Or so far from the show head on over to cut.org Signal coming up. We’re going to talk renovations at the Paramount and State Theaters in downtown Austin should be a very fun conversation. We’ll be back in a moment, and we’ll talk to you then This is Austin Signal, here on listener-powered public radio KUT News, thank you for spending part of your day here with us. The Paramount Theater launched a campaign this week to raise money for a restoration of the 110-year-old building. The Paramound is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is only one of 20 theaters in the U.S. That is more than 100 years old and still operating. Hmm, you know, I think I heard that fact during an A.T. Live show. I wonder who did that story. There are also plans for a re-imagining of the state theater next door. Jim Ritz is CEO of the Austin Theater Alliance, the nonprofit that operates both venues. He’s with us now on Austin Signal. Howdy, Jim. Howdy. Nice to be with you. I’m glad you are here. When I just met you a little bit earlier, but you made me change my first question because you invoked the name of John Ailey walking into the studios today. We obviously hear no. And are reminded now, in his absence, how important John was towards making people feel like a part of Austin, part of the local music and arts experience. How important are the Paramount and state theaters when it comes to supporting arts and music here in Austin?
Jim Ritts [00:16:07] I think one of the things we can draw a parallel between John and the Paramount and State Theater and frankly KUT, there are certain parts that are a fabric of our fundamental part of the fabric of this community and the paramount theater has been here for 110 years. John only felt like he was here for a 110 years, but what he gave us was an insight on maybe part of a culture of Austin, we wouldn’t have understood more fully. Beyond that, the cultural arts groups in this city never had a greater friend than John Ailey. He loved to go to the shows, he liked to talk about them. And so with the Paramount being 110 years and the State Theater being 90 years, we’re now in the sixth generation of patrons who are coming in to be with us. In many ways they are those generations are tied together by their experiences that can only happen in a place like the paramount theater the state theater and i’m hoping all the other organizations will grow to be a hundred and ten years and they will have their six generations of by that time will be on our twelfth generation
Jerry Quijano [00:17:22] Absolutely. I’m not sure what generation we’re at here at KUT, but yes, we want to continue growing into the future, and that’s part of the reason why you are planning this restoration. You mentioned 110 years old, 90 years old. Why now? Um, a couple reasons.
Jim Ritts [00:17:37] We’ve come to a point in time, we’ve needed to do a full restoration of the Paramount Theater probably for 20 years. The work that they did in 79 was simply miraculous, given the economics that were available to them, the resources that were able to them was simply marvelous. But there has, as we said, she’s beautiful but she needs a little work. Yeah, we all do. Absolutely. And with the state theater, it’s a more dramatic change. We’re doing a complete re-imagining, protecting the historic front of the theater, which is beautiful. But virtually everything else that was once historic has been gone, has been taken away over the years. And that’s impacted the business. In the state theater, and particularly it is, we talk about our business, that the way that we operate is take really good care of the patrons, really good of the artists. And frankly, really good care of one another. And because we had 300 seats, and we only had one concession with one or two bartenders, more importantly, only two restrooms for 300 people, you can’t live up to what you’re saying our mission is, which is to provide the best patron experience. The other thing is, we were limited to some degree by the size of our dressing rooms, our green rooms, the seating capacity. For us to be able to have a wider variety of artists, not only nationally, but from the local communities and with what we’re doing by bringing in telescopic seating, bringing in a new mezzanine, bringing in a new balcony will increase the seating capacity by 50%, but also just incredible changes in concessions and lounges and the stage areas, which is going to let us, I think, be able to bring in so many different of the local. Community cultural institutions. We’re doing some wonderful things with Ballet Afrique right now and I think the new state theater will be important to us from that. What also the state theater represents is the next generation of patrons. We can do things in the state, in the new state theater that we can’t do right now. We can experiment to a greater degree. The cost of failure and experimentation is not as great at this date as it is at the Paramount. But if you’re able to not just invite new chronology, meaning the next generations, but also the entire community to be able to feel welcome and to experiment with us, then what we’re doing is, I think, is we’re growing the next generation of cultural leaders and also patrons who will then ultimately move over to the Paramout Theater.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:15] So what is your fundraising goal and what are some of the things you would like to improve?
Jim Ritts [00:20:19] $55 million for construction for both theaters, $10 million to establish an endowment. The overall objective is to protect both theaters for the next hundred years. I mean, just very simply put, the key things, I just talked a little bit about the state, but let me go over to the Paramount Theater. The Paramount theater, its internal ornamentation is spectacularly beautiful, but it is deteriorating. And what we are going to be doing is though the theater was originally opened in 1915 as the Majestic Theater, in 1930 it was purchased by Paramount Pictures. And at that time there were a number of changes that they made and in the 79 restoration, things that they did differently. What we’re doing is, we’re going to take it back to the palette of the color palette and design of 1931. Then we’re also, and this is be… And probably I should lead with this for your entire audience. We are replacing every single seat in the Paramount Theater.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:23] Oh, I can hear the ovation coming from the drag outside, you know, people are responding.
Jim Ritts [00:21:30] I appreciate it, but it’s true. We’re way beyond their useful life. So we will be replacing all of those. We’re also significantly upgrading our technology for sound and lighting. We’re a union house, a very proud union house. And our union sound artists and lighting artists do not have the state of the art tools in order for us to really maximize what their capabilities are. And I think that folks, when they come into it, will still be this wonderfully intimate theater. And I they’ll feel the freshness of what we’re doing with the ornamentation. But I think what they’ll notice is a different relationship to the music, to the spoken word, to the film, because we’re upgrading all of that. The final thing that we’re doing or the final two things is we are expanding the concessions areas and we’re going to be expanding the restroom areas, Okay. Which I think is very important. The final thing that I love is in the original 1915 plans for the Majestic Theater, now the Paramount Theater, there was behind those three opera windows that you see on the front of the Paramout Theater, the Paramouth Blade bisects the middle window. John Eberson, who was the architect who designed it in 1915, it is so clear that what was in his mind was that those windows would be open. There are actually balconettes in front of each of them where somebody can stand. But those windows were gonna be open, white shears would be blowing in the wind, and behind that was to be a ballroom that you would have had a woodwind quartet playing and all of that. Well, for some reason, they built the windows, they put in the floor, they put it in crown molding, but they never built out that 1,500 square feet. We are now going to be doing that and building it out, and it will be JP’s Peace, Love and Happiness Lounge. We’re very grateful to. To the DeZoria family, to JP and Eloise, for funding that entire project.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:31] And you can see what that looks like over at KUT.org. I gotta ask you, and although there’s great anticipation for the new seats, what’s gonna happen to those old ones? You think people might wanna own a piece of the Paramount, have a little history?
Jim Ritts [00:23:42] First of all, you’re exactly right, and we are a non-profit and we will raise funds however we can. I know all about that. Well, we do know that, we’ve done a lot of things together. But what we’ll be doing first is we will be giving our patrons an opportunity to buy those seats. And then depending on what we have after that. We’ll determine whether they can be reutilized elsewhere or if they’re too far gone. But we will be very ecologically sensitive to how we deal with those that are not sold.
Jerry Quijano [00:24:19] Okay well we only have about a minute left, you know, lots of things to be excited about heading into the future. What do you hope for the Paramount’s future, you said for the next century, what do you hope that’s going to be like?
Jim Ritts [00:24:32] What I hope is that it continues to be what it is right now, and I believe it is the crossroads of our community, where the people are allowed to come in and have the opportunity to see the widest range of programming. They can be made to laugh. They can made to cry. They can make to think perhaps a little bit differently, but that they understand that this is the place that you can come and see literally every form of entertainment. You have the opportunities to be moved. And perhaps maybe, we hope, improved a little bit because your soul was fed by the Paramount and State theaters.
Jerry Quijano [00:25:08] A very simple goal, and I love that. I love you can get grounded in that, and if you haven’t been to the Paramount to the State Theater yet, it’s waiting for you. And hopefully we’ll be there long into the future. Again, we’ve been speaking with Jim Ritz. He is CEO of the Austin Theater Alliance, the non-profit that operates the Paramout and State Theaters. They set a $65 million fundraising goal for a restoration of both venues. Jim mentioned the JP’s Lounge. You can check out photos of what they would like to do in the future, over at KUT.org. Jim, thank you for being here today.
Jim Ritts [00:25:39] My pleasure, I really appreciate you having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:25:41] Absolutely, this is Austin Signal. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. We’re glad she’s back with us today. Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. I’m Jerry Quijano. We will talk to you tomorrow.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
