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TX House Dems Urge Drawdown of Federal CHIP Funds, State Funding Increase

By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com

Austin, TX –

Because Texas ranks 50th among the states in per capita number of uninsured children, a group of Democratic House members today urged the state leadership to ensure that Texas draws down all of its available annual allocation of federal funding for its Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and combine that with surplus state dollars to provide insurance coverage for more than 600,000 Texas children over the next three biennia.

Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) said at a press conference today that to date approximately 175,000 slots that could be used to insure children in Texas have been removed from the CHIP program. Texas currently has 1.4 million children who are not insured, he said.

The Houston legislator urged the leadership of the state to draw down all of its annual federal allocation for CHIP funding and also to use surplus state dollars through 2011 to not only restore the CHIP program completely, but to also restore the dental, vision and mental health cuts from the previous session, and restore the 12-month eligibility. Coleman said the surplus and additional federal funds would allow Texas to insure up to 662,000 uninsured children, based on the predicted federal allocation through 2011.

Coleman said the federal funds are available and using them would not result in a spike in enrollment. The number of uninsured children in Texas would be reduced by 330,000 per year, he said. "This is good public policy. It's important that other states don't use our money to insure their children." Coleman said the proposal is easily done, "if the priority of this state is to insure Texas children."

The lawmakers are trying to look "long-term" in relation to the needs of the 1.4 million Texas children without health insurance, said Rep. Elliott Naishtat (D-Austin). "This is visionary," he said, "this is long-term." Naishtat said when the CHIP program was created, there were continued statements that 600,000 of the state's uninsured children were Medicaid-eligible but not enrolled. To address the problem, the legislature simplified the application and enrollment process for CHIP and Medicaid coverage, which Naishtat said the 78th Legislature then "unsimplified."

He described HB 566, which he said focuses solely on restoring cuts to CHIP from last session, from dental and vision benefits to mental health and substance abuse benefits. It also would require the Health and Human Services Commission to conduct community outreach and communication programs to promote enrollment. It would provide for 12-month eligibility, eliminate the asset test and use a family's net income after reductions for child care and work related expenses instead of gross income to determine eligibility.

Coleman said the reason to restore the cuts is a "no-brainer." He also said the public has spoken in elections over the past year, saying they want children insured and that state officials who don't see that as many as possible are insured should not be in office.

He said he believes the state can spend $1.1 billion per biennium of state and federal funds. "Why should we allow states like Wisconsin and New York to insure their children with our federal tax dollars?"

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) recently railed against the state's leadership for not drawing down all of the federal funds available for CHIP. The federal government allocates $2.69 for every one dollar of state funding for the CHIP program, said Coleman. He noted that the state has $1 billion in its Rainy Day Fund, adding that if the state could give $300 million for assistance to corporations, surely there is some funding available for CHIP. "It's all about the priorities of the state," he said. "It's real clear this is about what's the best public policy for Texas."

Coleman said voters have said that they think children should be insured. He cited losses by Republican U.S. Congress candidate Arlene Wohlgemuth, and Texas House Republican incumbents Jack Stick and Talmadge Heflin, all of whom lost their election bids, as victims of the CHIP cuts according to Coleman. He said the principal issue in those races was not only the cuts, but also whether or not children were insured.

Rep. Pete Gallegos (D-Alpine) chided the state leadership for not taking advantage of a good investment - one dollar of state money for $2.65 of federal funds. "Who among us would not take that deal? There is no better investment in this state than our kids. To say we're not going to make this investment for whatever reason is very poor policy."

"This is fiscally responsible," concluded Coleman. The more children uninsured, the greater the tax needs at the local level, he said, citing how county governments are often saddled with indigent health care as a result of uninsured children visiting expensive emergency rooms for health care. "People who are about tax relief should be interested in lowering what is spent on indigent care," he said.

The Houston Democrat noted that in 2001, the state left $170 million in federal funding on the table, another $324 million in 2002, $123 million in 2003, $85 million in 2004 and $104 million in 2005. "This is money that could have served Texas children that is now serving children in other states."