There are 1.5 million children in Texas that do not have health insurance, more than 850,000 are eligible for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, CHIP, but are not currently enrolled into either program. Medicaid is free for families that cannot afford children’s health insurance. CHIP is a program for the families that earn too much for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance. Both of these programs provide immunizations, checkups, prescription drugs, hospital visits and dental care.
Human Services Executive Commissioner, Albert Hawkins said “some families just don’t know about the programs or others say their children are healthy and don’t need the care. Even if you think your children are healthy, there can always be that time that the children could get sick and need a doctor and the family not have enough money to pay for the doctor’s visit.
Texas needs to do a better job of letting these families know about these programs even if the families claim their children are healthy. Advertising in Texas magazines, local television stations or on billboards would go far in helping the word get out about these programs and help these families give their children the proper health care they deserve.
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I agree that more parents need to enroll in the CHIP and Medicaid programs. The reason why they don't is because it is a lot of work to get enrolled in Medicaid. If you have ever been to the welfare office you know you will be there all day and may not get to see anyone. Matthew should have mentioned the inadequate system we have that provides these services. CHIP also had a 90 day waiting period and if they provided insurance at your work you would have to go through another process to try to get some insurance for your children. Another thing parents do not consider is if your child gets hospitalized the bills can be outrageous. Many parents think that they can just ignore the bill and nothing will happen, but the reality is that is why hospital and insurance prices are going up. Someone has to pay for all of the medical care. CHIP has had a few television programs, but not enough to make a real difference and I have to agree more advertising should be put out there. Here we can see again that prevention is not be exercised in Texas. Overall his blog was good, but could have expanded on a few areas and perhaps listed the source from which he got the first sentence of his paper.
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