Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to revoke government funding from a Houston children’s hospital after one of its doctors went viral on TikTok for advising patients to skip a citizenship question on intake forms.
Dr. Tony Pastor , a cardiologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, shared a post on November 11 claiming he and other hospital staff were told that patients didn’t have to answer the “Are you a U.S. citizen?” question included on intake forms despite Abbott issuing a new executive order requiring hospitals that take Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance plans to do so. The order went into place on November 1, 10 days prior to the post — which was deleted after garnering more than 1 million views — being shared.
“So my proposal to everyone who’s seeing this is, just know that you do not have to answer this question,” Pastor said in the since-deleted video.
Abbott shared a post on his X account last week warning that the hospital could potentially lose its funding due to the comments.