Kudos to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn for calling attention to two important government health insurance programs for Texas children.

While on a visit to Austin last week, Cornyn, R-Texas, met with state officials to get an update on the Children’s Health Insurance Program and on Medicaid. He got mixed reviews and that should help the senator do a better job in Washington as those programs come up for review. Cornyn opposed a bipartisan expansion of CHIP.

The extra attention should also help state officials get the word out to Texas families about CHIP and Medicaid. The number of children who are eligible for, but not enrolled in, CHIP or Medicaid is staggering: 850,000 kids. That is more than half of the 1.5 million who are eligible for either program.

Obviously, those numbers need to be reduced, given that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured children in the nation. We know that when children have health coverage, they are less likely to turn up in emergency rooms for routine health care and more likely to have regular checkups in doctors’ offices. Healthy children have better attendance in school.

The reasons so many children are eligible but not enrolled vary, from families being unaware of the government insurance programs to administrative backlogs in processing applications.

To be fair, the CHIP program is rebounding nicely, thanks to the Legislature, which restored cuts in the program this year. Since September, CHIP enrollment has expanded by 40,000 children and is climbing. As of November, 340,985 children were enrolled in CHIP.

It’s worth noting that CHIP is for children of working parents who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, government insurance for poor families, but too little to afford private coverage.

It’s encouraging that legislative interventions backed by the solid work of advocacy groups, such as the Texas Children’s Defense Fund, churches and community organizations, are making a difference in enrolling children in CHIP. Now the same effort needs to be aimed at Medicaid.

The vast majority (660,000) of the 850,000 uninsured Texas children are eligible for Medicaid. They aren’t getting it because families are unaware of their eligibility and there are too many barriers that discourage them from applying. Also, the state lacks sufficient staff to process Medicaid applications, resulting in a backlog .

In Austin, just 78.8 percent of Medicaid applications are processed in a timely manner, and there are significant backlogs in Dallas and El Paso as well.

The state is hiring more people to work in those regions, but turnover is high. Salaries for those jobs average about $30,000 a year.

Another Medicaid rule that hinders enrollment is a requirement that families must enroll every six months to maintain eligibility. That impeded CHIP enrollment until the Legislature wisely discarded that provision. Now, CHIP children enroll once a year, and it should be the same for Medicaid families.