The Texas Senate has passed Senate Bill 2, which likely faces a more strenuous debate in the Texas House. Credit: Shutterstock / CrackerClips Stock Media

Despite Texas lawmakers’ assurances during the recently ended legislative session that they had children’s health, safety and wellbeing at the top of their priority list, a new report suggests they fell significantly short.

In that report, the advocacy group Texans Care for Children called out the Republican-controlled Lege for dropping the ball on major opportunities to the state’s kids — especially when it comes to health coverage. Indeed, the session included significant steps backward, including banning gender-affirming care for minors.

“I’m grateful to legislators and their staff for working with us to advance numerous policy reforms this session,” Texans Care CEO Stephanie Rubin said in a blog post discussing the report. “But I’m also disappointed that state leaders fell short in so many areas, especially at a time when families are struggling and legislators had $33 billion in additional revenue available to them.”

Here’s where the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature came up short, according to Texans Care’s report:

  • The Lege failed to pass legislation to remedy the state’s uninsured rate for children, which remains the worst in the nation. The House passed a proposal that would have offered better health coverage for currently eligible but uninsured children, but the Senate failed to move on it.
  • Similarly, lawmakers failed to even hold a hearing on accepting Medicaid expansion funding, which would greatly expand health coverage for low-wage adults. To date, 41 states have accepted the federal funding, and experts say Texas’ failure to do so is a key reason it has the nation’s highest uninsured rate.
  • The Lege failed to increase funding for school districts so they could keep pace with enrollment and inflation or help address pressing teacher shortages. What’s more, lawmakers passed a bill that would reduce qualifications for pre-K teachers.
  • Led by Republican leaders, the lawmakers passed a “divisive and harmful” bill banning gender-affirming care for minors even though parents favor the right to choose such treatments and medical professionals maintain they’re safe and beneficial to the kids who need them.
  • Despite lawmakers saying a lot about mental health in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting, they didn’t provide dedicated funding to school districts to address those needs. They also failed to make funding available to offer mental health support for kids before they’re in crisis.
  • Even though the Texas House included a $2.3 billion proposal to boost funding for child care, that money didn’t make in into the final budget bill, and legislators passed no significant proposals to address the child care crisis facing many families.

Despite that laundry list of failings, Texans Care outlined the following gains for children during the session:

  • The Lege passed a bill extending Medicaid insurance for mothers to 12 months after their pregnancy rather than removing them after just two months. Texans Care and other advocacy groups have lobbied for that change for the past three sessions.
  • Lawmakers increased funding for Early Childhood Intervention for infants and toddlers with disabilities and developmental delays.
  • A bill that originated in the Texas Senate is designed to ensure that more foster kids end up in homes with families rather than in “impersonal group facilities with a higher risk of abuse.”
  • Despite it’s failure to offer dedicated school district mental health funds, the Lege agreed to spend some $2 billion in new and existing mental health hospitals and expand its telemedicine program into schools.

Interestingly, the report makes no mention of gun reform even though many children’s advocates consider it essential to improving the health and safety of young people in the state.

Whatever the reason for its omission of firearms legislation, the report includes a solemn reminder that, had advocacy groups not been lobbying for children, the session could have yielded even more dismal results.

“We helped get a number of important bills through one chamber before coming up short in the other chamber — laying the groundwork for the future on child care, children’s health coverage, diverting youth in foster care away from the juvenile justice system, and more,” Rubin said. “We also worked with legislators and their staff to improve bills — or in some cases block legislation that would have a harmful impact on kids.”

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This article appears in May 31 – Jun 13, 2023.

Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...