Weak logic kills CHIP expansion
June 11, 2009
Gov. Rick Perry's opposition to seeking full funding from Washington for the Children's Health Insurance Program has never made any sense — or cents — for Texas.
Written by Editorial, The San Antonio Express-News
Gov. Rick Perry's opposition to seeking full funding from Washington for the Children's Health Insurance Program has never made any sense — or cents — for Texas.
Texas has both the highest rate and the greatest number of uninsured children in the nation.
Because these children don't receive preventive care, they tend to get sick more often and more seriously than insured children.
When they do finally receive medical treatment, it's usually in expensive emergency rooms. Local taxpayers pick up the bill for indigent care provided by public health services that are largely financed by property taxes.
So forget the notion that insuring the children of working families who don't qualify for Medicaid yet can't afford private health insurance somehow adds to the tax burden. That burden already exists. The only real issue is how it is shared.
For every dollar Texas puts into the CHIP program, the state receives more than $2.50 back from the federal government.
Proposals to expand CHIP to cover 80,000 uninsured children would have cost the state $38 million in the next biennium. In return, Texas would have received $97 million in matching funds from Washington. That's a good deal on its own.
But the true cost to the state would have been much less than $38 million. The expansion would have been achieved by allowing families with income of up to 300 percent of the poverty level to buy into CHIP on a sliding scale.
Rejecting the federal match and leaving $97 million on the table in Washington is the definition of being penny-wise and pound-foolish. Other states are happy to get the money Texas leaves behind.
Yet, as he has done in the past, Perry signaled he would not look favorably upon a CHIP expansion.
That signal was enough for Speaker Joe Straus and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to allow CHIP bills that passed the Senate and House by large, bipartisan margins to wither and die on the legislative vine.
Despite the obvious budgetary logic of CHIP expansion, opponents claim the state should focus on increasing enrollment for those children currently eligible rather than expanding eligibility.
In reality, it's not an either/or proposition.
But even if you do accept this argument, Texas is doing nothing to streamline enrollment or adequately staff an outreach effort to reach eligible yet uninsured children.
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