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.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
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.
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.
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.
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.
People were worried and
just had questions about, well, how
does this affect my plan and my
situation? Okay.
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-
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hey, how are you?
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?
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.
It seems like it, but what did
you encounter? What did you get
back?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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-
Under the guise of competition.
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.
It wasn't that much at all, right?
No, I mean, there was only a couple
hundred pages. So we got 1,400
pages, took five months.
You did actually get 1,400 pages.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
So what is your fundraising goal and
what are some of the things you
would like to improve?
$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.
Oh, I can hear the ovation coming
from the drag outside, you know,
people are responding.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
My pleasure, I really appreciate you
having me.
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.