Small Victories for Healthy Kids
March 29th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Rep. Jodie Laubenberg proposed an amendment that would make eligibility requirements for prenatal care the same as eligibility requirements for children under CHIP. Currently, if a woman does not qualify for Medicaid, her unborn child can qualify for CHIP, and she can receive prenatal care.
Laubenberg’s amendment would have meant that undocumented mothers would not be eligible to receive prenatal care, even though their children, once born, would be U.S. citizens, and thus eligible to receive healthcare. Prenatal care decreases the incidence of low birth weight babies and allows birth defects to be detected, said Rep. Rafael Anchia, who debated Laubenberg on the floor.
Anchia said that more than 100,000 children would be kicked off the CHIP prenatal care program with the change in eligibility requirements. Laubenberg insisted that the amendment would not change enrollment. “I am looking at the same information as you are, but that is simply not true,” she said.
After a belligerent debate, Laubenberg withdrew her amendment “out of consideration” for the House, given the long night ahead. However, she added, “I will be back.”
Anchia said in an interview that he takes her at her word. He said that it’s “possible” he will attach amendments to her amendment as a strategy to keep the amendment from passing.
When asked, the chair said that it was understood that Laubenberg had permanently withdrawn her amendment, rather than temporarily.
Rep. Linda Harper-Brown proposed an amendment that would have changed CHIP eligibility requirements, limiting the state to allowing eligibility for which the federal government provides a funding match. The federal government matches funds for healthcare provided to children who are legal permanent residents and have been here for five years. States are allowed to provide healthcare to legal permanent resident children before they have been here for five years, but do not receive a federal match in doing so. Anchia said the amendment would have kicked 15,000 permanent resident kids off of CHIP. The amendment was overwhelmingly voted down.
While it’s great that a majority of the House saw the sense in not penalizing kids because their parents might be undocumented, it’s a sorry commentary on Texas and the legislators who carried these amendments that this debate even happened.
