State Representative Garnet F. Coleman (D-Houston) announced that 5,193 lost their health coverage under the Children's Health Insurance Program in June, according to today's reports from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC). Since March 2007, 24,295 have lost CHIP coverage.

 

"The continued decline in enrollment only reinforces the fact we must completely restore the CHIP program," Rep. Coleman said. "During the previous session, we partially restored the CHIP program, but we didn't do nearly enough."

 

During the recently completed 80th Regular Session, the Legislature completed two steps towards restoring CHIP coverage:

 

1.      Rep. Coleman placed a rider on the state budget that removes significant administrative barriers -- "red tape policies" -- HHSC has previously adopted that were making it more difficult for children to receive CHIP coverage.

 

2.      House Bill 109, by Rep. Sylvester Turner, restored some of the cuts to CHIP. Most significantly, it extended the renewal coverage from six months to twelve months for all families whose income is between 100-185% of the Federal Poverty Level. According to the Legislative Budget Board fiscal note on HB 109, the bill should add approximately 100,000 children to CHIP.

 

"The efforts made by Rep. Turner, myself, and other lawmakers will get us about halfway to where we were in 2003, but that's not good enough," Rep. Coleman said. "We will still have over 100,000 fewer children enrolled in CHIP in the coming months than we did four years ago. We can't continue playing catch-up with the past and calling it a day. Our work is not completed until every single child eligible for CHIP receives the health coverage they deserve."