Senate to Make Last-Ditch Push to Pass Children’s Health Bill

The chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee is planning to file a last-ditch effort to allow children’s hospital health plans to compete with national companies under the state’s $116 billion Medicaid contract, according to the Quorum Report.

Last year, Cook Children’s Hospital sued the state over its decision to drop their legacy children’s hospitals from the state’s procurement process.

But proposals to undo that decision in the House have failed this session.

House Administration Committee Chair Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, filed House Bill 3538 in February, but it was referred to the House Human Services Committee in March and hasn’t been heard since.

And Rep. James Frank, R-Wichita Falls, who is the chair of the House Public Health Committee’s subcommittee on Disease Prevention and Women’s and Children’s Health, filed House Bill 5183 and House Bill 5185, neither of which have been heard by the House Human Services Committee since being referred last month.

With less than a month left in the session, Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chair Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, is planning to move to suspend the Senate’s rules to file a new bill  in the upper chamber.

The motion could come as early as today, according to the Quorum Report, in order to get it a hearing in her committee on Wednesday.

Any such motion would need to come with the assent of the Senate president, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. That seems assured, as Patrick strategist Allen Blakemore is a lobbyist for Cook Children’s, QR reports. And Patrick’s former chief of staff, Logan Spence, now lobbies for Driscoll Children’s Hospital, which is aligned with other children’s hospitals in advocating for the change, including Texas Children’s in Houston.

The president of Cook Children’s health plan, Karen Love, went on the record with Kolkhorst’s plan in a D magazine article.

“You should have the choice of a local nonprofit plan that takes its earnings and invests them back in the community rather than taking earnings and putting them into the pockets of shareholders who may not even live in Texas,” Love said, as quoted by QR.

She added later: “There’s widespread consensus in the legislature that the children’s plans need to be put back in the program.”