Word: medicaid
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...with large brown eyes, who has been diagnosed with depression and attention-deficit disorder, should be under regular care by a doctor. The Haros family income, which rests on the mother's $5.35-an-hour job at a local candy plant, is low enough to qualify him for Medicaid. But for reasons all too common in Bush's state, Ray receives nothing from the federal and state insurer of the poor. Like 734,000 other uninsured Texas youngsters who live in poverty, he relies on the uncertain charity of free clinics and social workers who scrounge for medicine to help...
...states have done just as badly as Texas in using federal funds allotted to them. The real failure in Texas, the one for which the state stands out, is its poor record of reaching the much larger pool of kids who are too poor for CHIP but eligible for Medicaid. These are families of four with incomes at or below the poverty line...
...sure, Bush inherited a huge gap in Medicaid enrollment from his Democratic predecessor. When Bush took over in 1995, Medicaid officials failed to reach about 30% of eligible children, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan Washington group. The percentage grew as Texas families, forced off cash assistance by new welfare laws, were not told that their children still qualified for Medicaid. Nevertheless, Bush put an emphasis on tax cuts rather than spending to expand eligibility and break down barriers to enrollment. Democrats contend that the Governor showed his priorities when he opened the 1999 legislative...
...legislature, not the Governor's office, that pushed to extend Medicaid's reach. In 1995 lawmakers sought to widen the net to an additional 303,000 kids by expanding eligibility to families at 133% of the poverty level. First, the state had to obtain approval from Washington. It sent its plan within the statutory deadline and received a response from federal officials, who asked the usual large number of questions. But instead of a prompt follow-up, Bush's regulators waited nearly a year to submit a revised version. Another volley of paperwork continued until August 1997, when Congress passed...
...delay freed Texas from having to spend billions of dollars in matching state grants, leaving enough money for Bush to pass $1 billion in tax relief in the 1997 legislative session. Two years later, he set his sights on even bigger tax cuts. To make the numbers work, Medicaid spending had to be contained. The Governor's office fought a bill to require automatic re-enrollment in Medicaid of kids still eligible after their parents were dropped from welfare rolls. And under pressure from Bush allies running the appropriations committees, Texas legislators accepted projections of a steep decline in patient...