Need your help with the Children's Health Coverage Bill at the Lege

The Children's Health Coverage Bill is finally starting to move at the Texas Legislature! But, after all the delays, we're going to need a lot of help if the bill is going to beat the deadlines in the last few weeks of the legislative process.

On Thursday, the House Human Services Committee approved the bill, HB 342, after making a few changes. The bill would still be a big help to kids who are getting knocked off of Medicaid insurance due to excessive red tape. The new version of the bill allows only one mid-year income verification and automatically enrolls eligible kids in the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) if that one verification knocks them off of Medicaid for procedural reasons.

So what's next in the fight for health care for Texas kids?

Sometime in the next several days, the bill will reach the House Calendars Committee. At that point we'll all have a tight window — maybe just one day — to push the Committee to schedule the bill for a vote in the full Texas House with enough lead time to realistically beat the May 9th deadline to pass House bills.

In the meantime, we also need to turn up the heat on the Senate, where the Health and Human Services Committee hasn't even scheduled a hearing on the Senate version of the bill, SB 637. You can contact Senators about the bill using this action alert from the League of Women Voters of Texas:

Thanks for fighting for Texas kids — we need all hands on deck!