Texas Officials Should Commit To Fixing Program for Youths with Special Needs, Editorial Says

Texas lawmakers should commit to fixing the Children with Special Health Care Needs program, which provides health insurance and services to children with chronic illnesses, a Houston Chronicle editorial states. The program's waiting list, which adds nearly 100 children per month, is expected to reach 2,300 by August 2003. Clearing the waiting list by 2004 would cost $14 million and $18.8 million by 2005. As a result of the program's increasing enrollment, it faces a $7.5 million budget shortfall. While state officials have pledged "to ease the financial strain," it is "unlikely" that they will be able to put more money into the program, given the state's "lackluster revenue," the editorial says. The editorial adds that maintaining young peoples' health is an "investment that will pay off" in the future by decreasing costs for chronic care and producing children who are "well enough to go to school regularly." The editorial concludes, "In the absence of money to solve the problem, lawmakers will have to apply something that is sometimes in even shorter supply: a commitment to make a wholesale positive change" (Houston Chronicle, 5/14).