If college football comes to mind, then guess again. The correct answer is the percentage of uninsured children. Texas is No. 1 in the nation with 1.5 million children ? 22 percent of all kids ? who lack health insurance.



That has been true for more than a decade but does not have to be if the Legislature passes separate measures that will expand health insurance to poor children and children whose parents work but earn too little to afford private health coverage.

Texas has been notoriously stingy when it comes to health coverage. It's an issue that has divided the Legislature along partisan lines, with Republicans generally opposing expanding health insurance for children and Democrats generally favoring it. But lawmakers of both parties are working together this session to form bipartisan compromises that are good for Texas families ? and taxpayers.

Two bills would allow working parents to buy into the Children's Health Insurance Program if they earn more than allowed. To be eligible for CHIP a family of four can earn up to $44,100. That would be extended to about $66,150 for a family of four if the bipartisan measure passes. But those families would have to pay premiums ranging from $88 to $120 a month.

The program would add 80,000 children to CHIP, costing the state about $38 million over two years. But that would keep those children out of hospital emergency rooms for routine medical treatment and cover hospital bills when those children need to be admitted. That in turn would reduce the burden on local taxpayers who are paying the bills for the uninsured.

State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, and Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, authored the measures, and both have passed out of committees in the House and Senate.

Another bill that has a good chance of becoming law would expand the Medicaid enrollment period from six months to 12 months. At this point, many children fall off the program every time families have to enroll because parents don't submit applications on time or because the state makes errors in processing applications.

Lawmakers purposely designed the system that way to require families to prove their eligibility every six months, knowing that many families would drop out. Extending eligibility to once a year also helps the Health and Human Services Commission better manage the workload.

The measure by state Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, would add 258,000 children to Medicaid, a state- and federal-financed health insurance program for the poor. Texas' cost would be $297 million over two years, but it would be covered by Medicaid money expected to come to Texas from President Obama's stimulus package. The measure would expire in two years, when those funds are depleted.

For too long, Texas has politicized health coverage, and it shows with the rate of uninsured Texas children rising to nearly twice the national average of 12 percent. There is no pride in being No. 1 in this category.