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Rio Grande Guardian

Saenz: Texas senators should vote for SCHIP reauthorization

2 August 2007

Steve Taylor and Joey Gomez

WESLACO, August 1 - A leading CHIP advocate in South Texas has urged area families to call their senators today to push for reauthorization of the popular health insurance program.

Luisa Saenz, project administrator for the Rio Grande Valley Children’s Defense Fund, made her comments at a meeting of the Children’s Health Coalition in Weslaco Wednesday.

“Right now is the time to call. We need to call Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchinson and tell them they need to vote for the CHIP reauthorization,” Saenz said.

“No matter how hard we tried at the state level to get the CHIP bill passed in 2007, if they don’t reauthorize the program at the federal level, the funds get cut and we take ten steps back.”

The ten-year old the State Children’s Health Insurance Program will expire Sept. 30 if not reauthorized by Congress. If that happens, six million children nationwide could lose their health care.

The key Senate vote could come Thursday. A coalition of Senate Republicans and Democrats are supporting a $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and the measure, which would add 3 million lower-income children to the rolls, appears to be headed for passage by a resounding margin.

That leaves GOP leaders trying to garner enough opposition to sustain a threatened veto by the White House. President Bush says both the House and Senate versions of the reauthorization bill would cost too much. He has said he also fears that expanding the decade-old program will take it beyond its original mission, thereby moving toward government-run health care.

The more ambitious House legislation, a $50 billion SCHIP expansion paid for in part by slashing government payments to Medicare HMOs, attracted only five Republican votes, while 10 Democrats crossed party lines to oppose it.

Socialized medicine may be very popular in South Texas, where CHIP enrollment is at its highest. According to the latest figures released by the state’s Health and Human Services Commission, there are 300,262 children enrolled this month in CHIP. The program covers kids whose parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little to buy private insurance.

CHIP enrollment has fluctuated over the past year and a half amid problems with a contractor hired to process applications. CHIP enrollment is expected to increase in the coming months as the Texas Health and Human Services Commission implements changes the Legislature approved this spring. The program makes economic sense for the state because for every dollar the legislature invests, the federal government kicks in $2.75.

Generally, families of four must have an income of less than $20,650 for their children to qualify for Medicaid. They must make less than $41,300 to qualify for CHIP.

Many children who leave the CHIP rolls do so because their family income is low enough for them to qualify for Medicaid.
Saenz told the Guardian that reauthorization of the CHIP program was critically important to South Texas.

“The Valley, as we know already, has the highest rate of unemployment, the highest rate of poverty, and definitely a higher rate of uninsured children. It’s as high as 38 percent,” Saenz said.

“Failure to reauthorize or a veto by President Bush would be devastating for the Valley. It would mean our children would have to go to the emergency room, and we all know that means a lot higher cost for medical care.”

Saenz said despite the fact that CHIP had proven to be effective, with millions more children enrolled, there were still nine million kids across the country without coverage.

“The money that we need to keep the program going for the next 10 years has got to be more important than allocating tax breaks for the richest people in the nation,” Saenz said. “As a society, we have to show the world that children are our priority, and I feel very strongly that our leader should be in agreement that children come first.”

Saenz added that she could not comprehend why anyone would think about cutting back funding for children’s health.

“If we think of it in economic terms, we’re talking about having a healthy workforce, and if this is all about the global economy, those kinds of things that are important to us as a nation,” Saenz said.

“Certainly we should feel that taking care of our children now means we are going to raise a healthy educated workforce.”

In a statement, Senator Cornyn acknowledged the success of CHIP but said he had misgivings about the expansion proposals offered by Democrats.

“By any standard, SCHIP has been a remarkable success. The rate of children in America living without health insurance dropped by 25 percent from 1996 to 2005, and approximately one million Texas children who would not get care otherwise have benefited,” Cornyn said.

“Reauthorization of SCHIP is extremely important to Texas, especially as our state strives to continue improving access to quality, affordable health care for children.”

However, Cornyn said there were a number of areas in the proposed legislation which concern him. “This proposed bill actually encourages the irresponsible use of funds at the state level, and punishes states, such as my home state of Texas, which have used this program judiciously and according to its initial intent,” Cornyn said. “As written, Texas stands to lose more than $600 million dollars in federal health care funding for next year.”

Echoing Bush, Cornyn said he was afraid that some of his colleagues had forgotten the original intent of SCHIP. He said the original intent was to help children in low-income families, not adults who are living well above the poverty level.

“By seeking to increase spending on SCHIP by roughly 300 percent, it seems clear that some in the Senate are viewing this bill as a gateway to a federally funded, government-run health care program, similar to Canada,” Cornyn said.

“It is for these and other reasons that I will be supporting an alternate bill to the one supported by the Democratic majority. This legislation will meet the needs of Texas and its children, while ensuring that a massive tax increase is not imposed on working families.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.