Advocates say Texas could add 100,000 youths to Children's Health Insurance Program

Texas child advocates said Wednesday that the state could add 100,000 youngsters to the rolls of the Children's Health Insurance Program without a huge budget hit, now that the popular federal program has been renewed. The Texas Finish Line Campaign, a coalition of three advocacy groups, urged the Legislature to expand the program by letting some families above current income caps "buy in." The families would pay "significant" monthly premiums to cover their young, said Anne Dunkelberg, associate director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities. She said the premiums, based on a sliding scale pegged to income, would defray about half of the state's costs. Also, Texas will receive new federal CHIP money, almost enough to cover the rest of the proposed expansion's cost, she said. The state will be reimbursed for coverage it already extends to legal immigrant children. The CHIP reauthorization bill signed by President Barack Obama on Wednesday allows states to raise eligibility ceilings. In Texas, a family of four cannot earn more than $44,000. Though states now have a green light to admit a family of four earning $66,000, that's a legislative decision. If Texas simply loosened income caps for its program, which charges families no more than $50 a year, it could add 160,000 youngsters to the rolls at an extra state cost of $100 million, said Stephanie Goodman of the Health and Human Services Commission. Dunkelberg, though, said advocates are sensitive to lawmakers' concerns about a tight budget and have proposed a far less expensive approach, similar to Pennsylvania's. Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, is reviewing the buy-in proposal and considering advocates' plea that he sponsor it in the Legislature, his office said.