The Health Care Compact is a proposed interstate compact

Interstate compact

An interstate compact is an agreement between two or more states of the United States of America. Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution provides that "no state shall enter into an agreement or compact with another state" without the consent of Congress...

 – which is simply an agreement between two or more US states that is consented to by the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 – that places authority and responsibility for healthcare regulation to the member states (except for military healthcare, which will remain federal), and provides the funds to the states to fulfill that responsibility."

The proposers of the compact assert that healthcare is too complex to be run federally; that the constitution reserves to the states or to the people those powers not granted to the federal government, and that an interstate compact will bring healthcare down to a state level and follow the intent of the Constitution.

In June 2011, the Texas House of Representatives

Texas House of Representatives

The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the Texas Legislature. The House is composed of 150 members elected from single-member districts across the state. The average district has about 150,000 people. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...

voted for preliminary approval to allow the state to join the proposed interstate compact.