HBA-JEK H.B. 2660 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 2660 By: Christian Human Services 3/18/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The Texas Department of Human Services requires each adult recipient of its public assistance programs to sign a responsibility agreement that requires the recipient to ensure that, subject to the availability of funds and providers, each of the individual's dependent children will complete early and periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment checkups and receive the prescribed immunization series. While the children's health insurance program has made progress in insuring children in recent years, many children of public assistance recipients remain uninsured. House Bill 2660 requires HHSC to adopt rules requiring recipients of certain public assistance programs to enroll their dependent children in any public health care program for which the child is eligible. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that rulemaking authority is expressly delegated to the Health and Human Services Commission in SECTION 1 (Sec. 531.055, Government Code) of this bill. ANALYSIS House Bill 2660 amends the Government Code to require the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to adopt rules requiring a person receiving public assistance under a program administered by HHSC or a health and human services agency, as a condition for receiving that assistance, to enroll each of the person's dependent children in any public health care program, including Medicaid and the state child health plan (CHIP), for which the child is eligible. In implementing the rules, HHSC or the appropriate health and human services agency must identify any public health care program in which a person is required to enroll a child as well as assist the person with the procedures required to enroll the child in the identified program. The bill also provides that the rules must include procedures under which HHSC or the appropriate health and human services agency may exempt a person from the rules for good cause, including a person's inability to pay any cost associated with enrollment in a public health care program. EFFECTIVE DATE September 1, 2001.