House and Human Services Committee Staff:
Every Texan strongly supports the Committee Substitute for HB 290 by Cortez, coauthored by Rose.
- This compromise substitute will return Texas children’s Medicaid to the process that was in place from 2002 to 2014, and which is still in Texas law: 6-month continuous eligibility for children in Texas Medicaid.
- It clarifies that HHSC will use its available electronic income data sources at the 6-month point to trigger a second 6 months of continuous coverage, as HHSC did from 2002-2014. Annual recertification at 12 months will continue to require a full renewal process, in accordance with federal Medicaid law requirements.
- Latest HHSC data confirm that the current policy of four (4) mid-year income-eligibility checks (see graphic below) with just 10 days to reply terminated Medicaid for 65,000 Texas kids in 2019.
- Reducing to a single mid-year check with 30 days to provide missing information will eliminate most of these terminations of children who actually are still eligible.
Our coalition materials below are based on the original filed bill (which called for 12 months rather than 6 month of continuous eligibility), but the arguments they make about the current system’s flaws still apply equally to the Committee Substitute’s compromise approach.
These key excerpts are from materials compiled here.