Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Dr. Rosario Zabanal checked Francisco Paredes, 5, on Friday at San Vicente Clinic. Francisco's mother, Maria Paredes, said that her children were not enrolled in CHIP but that she would consider enrolling them if CHIP became available to more children. A new bill in the Texas Legislature would expand eligibility. (Victor Calzada / El Paso Times)

AUSTIN -- More El Paso children could have access to health care under a bill President Barack Obama signed this week, and an El Paso lawmaker wants to make sure that happens.

The signing followed the filing of a bill last week by state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, that would expand eligibility for the state Children's Health Insurance Program to include families with incomes three times the federal poverty level. Currently, the cut off is at twice the federal poverty level.

The federal bill signed by Obama increases Texas' CHIP allocation by 72 percent, according to a report from the Center for Public Policy Priorities. The report says this money would allow the state to expand its CHIP program.

Under Shapleigh's proposal, a family of four that makes up to $63,600 a year would be eligible for CHIP, a low-cost health insurance plan for families that make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance.

Texas has the dubious honor of leading all states with 1.5 million uninsured children. And El Paso is among the most-uninsured cities in the nation.

"We will move heaven and Earth to pull down all federal matching funds," Shapleigh said.

Shapleigh said the eligibility change could help insure between 80 to 90 percent of the children in El Paso.

Jon Law, a program officer at the Paso del Norte Health Foundation, said there are no reliable figures on the number of children with health insurance in the city.

Of the city's 230,000 children, he said, 120,000 are enrolled in either Medicaid or CHIP. The other 110,000 children are either high income, middle income with insurance, undocumented immigrants or eligible children who are not enrolled in those programs.

The foundation is evaluating how to award grants to community organizations such as churches and youth centers with large numbers of children. The groups will then identify uninsured El Paso children who are eligible for CHIP or Medicaid and enroll them in the programs.

Rene Navarro, manager at the Alameda branch of the San Vicente clinic, said any effort to enroll more children in CHIP and Medicaid should begin with more outreach to those already eligible. Navarro said making families with higher incomes eligible for CHIP makes sense because many families with incomes above the cutoff are falling through the cracks.

He said that between 20 and 23 percent of children treated at the clinic are uninsured but qualify for state health care. Business staffers at the clinic screen patients for eligibility as they are treated and notifies them of their status.

"The parents just didn't know that they were qualified for the most part," Navarro said.