Texas health insurance proposals given new life : R.G. Ratcliffe

Lawmakers entered the end game of the 81st Legislature, still struggling Thursday to avoid a special session on windstorm insurance reform - while also vainly fighting what appears to be yet another futile attempt to expand health care for needy Texas children.

Gov. Rick Perry hinted heavily that he will veto the Children's Health Insurance Program bill, assuming it survives the legislative maze necessary to reach his desk.

The House late Thursday sent the bill containing the CHIP provisions back to the Senate, claiming the amendment to revive it wasn't germane - all but killing the legislation.

But Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he believes there may be ways to resurrect it one more time if the House will agree by a two-thirds vote. Since an earlier House vote on CHIP expansion approved the program 87-55, a two-thirds vote for the issue in the 150-member House seemed unlikely.

The bill would make available subsidized health insurance for an additional 80,000 children by raising eligibility for CHIP to 300 percent of poverty, or a maximum income of $66,540 a year for a family of four.

"I would probably not be in favor of that expansion, even if it came to my desk. The members know that," Perry said. "That's not what I consider to be a piece of legislation that has the vast support of the people of Texas."

CHIP and windstorm insurance reform were among hundreds of measures killed by an extended House debate of minor bills to avoid controversial voter identification legislation.

The Senate worked until about 3 a.m. Thursday reviving many of the dead bills by putting them on other pieces of legislation as amendments.

By early afternoon, the Senate had sent the House more than 300 bills with amendments on them.

Still pending before the Legislature are issues like passage of the state budget for the next two years, a restructuring of the Texas Department of Transportation and a small-business tax break.

The Senate could have added the CHIP expansion to a bill about CHIP, but the Senate chose to attach it to another bill, leading to the House deciding the amendment was not germane.

CHIP supporters accused Dewhurst of intentionally sabotaging the bill.

The program is expected to cost the state $43.2 million over the next two years, but draw in 72 cents in federal money for every dollar spent.

Perry has told lawmakers he will call a special session if the windstorm insurance bill doesn't pass.

Perry, whose political fund has received $205,000 from the insurance industry since he became governor, declared the windstorm insurance reform an emergency item in 2007 and again this year.

Hurricanes Ike and Dolly in 2008 busted the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association with an expected $2 billion in payouts. TWIA provides windstorm insurance for homeowners who can't find private coverage - which includes all of 14 coastal counties and part of Harris County.

Perry denied pressuring lawmakers to settle TWIA.

"We are working to get a solution, whether I would put it into the applying pressure category, we just speak truth to power," Perry said.

The outcome of the debate could determine whether the TWIA rates go up significantly.

"The problem is who is going to pay for it, and that's why it's a statewide issue," said House sponsor Rep. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood.

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