Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

At the 2001 children's Medicaid expansion bill-signing ceremony in San Antonio, Gov. Rick Perry praised the new law that made it easier for poor children to enroll in and stay eligible for Medicaid. The governor was quoted by Cindy Tumiel in the San Antonio Express-News as saying, "There is no child among us that is not deserving of the finest care available."

We agree.

What happened between June 2001 and June 2009? The governor was absolutely right then, and he is absolutely right now when he says there is unfinished business in the 81st legislative session. That unfinished business includes first and foremost the expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program to include children from families making 300 percent of the poverty level. Austin Interfaith wants to remind the governor that our children take priority over any state agency. The governor should expand the special session agenda to include CHIP.

This session, the governor was reported to signal that he would veto CHIP expansion and leave $97 million in matching funds on the federal table, more than twice the state allocation of $38 million.

So what has changed? Are the children of Texas no longer a priority?

This session, a significant majority of senators and representatives voted to pass the CHIP buy-in three times in the Senate and once in the House. Senate Bill 841 passed with a bipartisan vote of 29-2 but died on the House calendar at the end of the session as part of the legislative meltdown that stranded hundreds of bills.

Comptroller Susan Combs certified the Texas budget for 2010-2011, a budget approved overwhelmingly by the House and Senate that contained the $38 million to expand CHIP to working families on a sliding scale buy-in if they make more than 200 percent of poverty. The money was in the budget!

We call on the governor to include health care for children as a priority as the Legislature meets for a special session that starts today.

Texas leads the nation with 1.5 million uninsured children. More than 30 percent of Travis County children are uninsured. This number includes children who might be eligible for other state-sponsored plans and are not currently enrolled or who have lost coverage due to punitive re-enrollment requirements, but it also includes working families who don't earn enough to afford private coverage.

The chambers of commerce from Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Arlington and Corpus Christi — communities that include 60 percent of Texas children — all supported the expansion of CHIP.

It is critical that we remember the words of Matthew 25:45: "I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me."

The uninsured children that the state left without health care coverage are the least ones, governor. Place CHIP on the call for the legislative special session.