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	Amend CSHB 109 on page 1 by adding the following ARTICLE and 
SECTIONS and renumbering the subsequent ARTICLES and SECTIONS 
appropriately:

ARTICLE 1. LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS
	SECTION 1.01. FINDINGS. The Legislature finds that:                            
		(1) the drastic reductions in funding for the children's 
health insurance program and the extensive public policy changes 
made to the program in the regular session of the 78th Legislature 
have resulted in devastating effects on the health and well-being 
of Texas children and their families and to the overall fiscal 
health of this state;
		(2) economic research has proven that reductions in 
state funding for health care services do more harm than good to the 
Texas economy because each dollar of state revenue that is 
eliminated from the children's health insurance program results in:
			(A) an average loss of $2.30 in federal health 
care funding for Texas and an average loss of approximately $7 in 
gross state product, $5 in personal income, and $2 in retail sales; 
and
			(B) an increase of $1.60 in insurance premiums for 
Texans who have private health insurance, plus a $1.50 increase in 
those Texans' out-of-pocket health care costs;
		(3) as a result of these reductions in health care 
services made by the 78th Legislature, local taxpayers bear the 
entire cost of health care for persons who are no longer receiving 
services under the children's health insurance program, often 
through vastly more expensive visits to hospital emergency rooms, 
even though the federal government would have paid about 72 percent 
of the costs of those services through the program;
		(4) children in other states have already received over 
$913.4 million in federal funds that were intended to provide 
health care coverage for Texas children under the children's health 
insurance program, which includes $20 million in federal funds 
scheduled to lapse on March 31, 2007, and this state will lose 
additional federal funds each year if the state fails to restore 
state funding and repeal the restrictive eligibility and benefits 
policies enacted by the 78th Legislature;
		(5) restoring benefits under the children's health 
insurance program and expanding that program to cover more 
uninsured children will result in healthier future generations of 
Texans and immeasurable long-term savings for this state;
		(6) this state must make its economy stronger and its 
workforce more productive by improving access to health care 
through prudent and sound fiscal policies that maximize the 
availability of federal funds for health care services for 
uninsured Texans; and
		(7) the investment of state resources to maximize 
receipt of federal funds would:
			(A) prevent the redistribution to other states of 
tax dollars that Texans have paid to the federal government;
			(B) alleviate the inefficient cost-shifting of 
health care services for uninsured Texans to local governments; and
			(C) stem the escalation of costs being passed on 
to Texans who have private health insurance.
	SECTION 1.02. PURPOSE. As a result of the findings made by the 
Legislature as stated in Section 1.01 of this article, the purposes 
of this Act are to:
		(1) reduce the number of uninsured children in Texas by 
providing reasonable access to health coverage for as many children 
as possible;
		(2) reverse restrictive policy changes made by the 78th 
Legislature with respect to the program in order to remove barriers 
to enrollment and eligibility;
		(3) insure as many children under the program as 
possible through this Act, through policies and rules adopted by 
the Health and Human Services Commission, and through future 
legislation, thereby ensuring that the state adopt health policies 
that work to promote, not limit, health coverage for Texas' 
children.