What a busy summer it has been! While the Texas Legislature's 78th Regular Session officially adjourned June 2, 2003, legislators stayed in Austin for the first of several special sessions on Congressional Redistricting.

These special sessions were closely monitored by the March of Dimes for opportunities to continue our advocacy efforts on issues not adequately addressed during the Regular Session. With representatives in Oklahoma and senators in New Mexico, it was an interesting session to say the least! Another special session on public school finance is to follow, and the March of Dimes will remain engaged in various legislative activities during the interim.

The State Public Affairs Committee continues to advocate for sound public policy on issues concerning healthy mothers and babies. Please join our efforts as part of the Advocacy Network by responding to Call to Action alerts to communicate with your elected officials. These alerts are issued not only during the legislative session, but during the interim as well. Know someone who would like to join the Advocacy Network? Have them contact Jorey Berry, State Director of Public Affairs, at jberry@marchofdimes.com.

Meganne Walsh, M.D.
Chair, State Public Affairs Committee

March of Dimes License Plates

On June 22, 2003, Governor Perry signed House Bill 2971 into law. Among other things, the legislation allowed for the production of March of Dimes specialty license plates. The license plates will cost an additional $30 above a normal renewal or purchase price. The Texas Department of Transportation will keep $8 for administrative costs and send $22 to the Texas Department of Health to support activities of the Texas Birth Defects Registry. The Texas Birth Defects Registry exists to identify and describe the patterns of birth defects in Texas and collaborate with others in finding causes of birth defects, working towards prevention, and linking families with services. Support of the Texas Birth Defects Registry is a March of Dimes public affairs priority. The March of Dimes license plates will go on sale in January 2004. The design will be posted on the Texas Department of Transportation's web site at www.txdot.state.tx.us/vtr/spplates/allplates.htm.

Prematurity Awareness Day

November 18th has been designated by the March of Dimes as National Prematurity Awareness Day. Premature births have been escalating at an alarming rate in the past 20 years nationally and in Texas. Although nearly half of all premature births have no known cause, we do know some risk factors-including maternal age, a history of preterm birth, chronic disease in the mother, and smoking-increase the likelihood of preterm birth. Women who receive prenatal care are more likely to have access to services that identify problems early and may help improve the health of mothers and infants. According to studies by the Institute of Medicine, uninsured women receive fewer prenatal services and report greater difficulty in obtaining needed care than women with insurance, and their babies, when born without insurance are more likely to be sick and less likely to receive needed hospital services than insured infants. The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau reports that in 2002, more than 1 million Texas women of childbearing age were without health insurance. One step towards addressing this problem is to restore Medicaid funding for pregnant women that has been eliminated in the most recent round of state budget cuts. For example, women in a family of four with a 2003 income of $30,000 are now ineligible. Restoring health insurance coverage for this population will go a long way toward assuring that their babies have a healthy start in life.

Letter to the Editor by Dr. Meganne Walsh

2004 Agenda

The State Public Affairs Committee selected the following issues to advocate in 2004:

• Newborn Screening - Work with state officials to expand the number of disorders for which newborns are screened in Texas from six to ten. Specifically, expand number of disorders by 3 by supporting a public/private partnership to implement a pilot project to screen newborns for MCAD, MSUD and Homocystinuria. More than 365,000 babies are born in Texas each year, thus the incidence for babies born with MCAD and other disorders could be significant (based upon California's pilot and similar demographics).

• Birth Defects Surveillance - Work with the Texas Department of Transportation to implement House Bill 2971, and market March of Dimes license plates to ensure strong funding stream to the Texas Birth Defects Registry. Protect against attempts to reduce funding or services. Although the Texas Registry is ranked as one of the top eight programs in the country, 50% of it's s funding was cut during the 2003 legislative session, and March of Dimes leadership was responsible for restoration of full funding.

• Access - Work with the Texas CHIP Coalition on efforts to restore funding cuts for Medicaid coverage for pregnant women from 158% to 185% FPL. More than 8,100 pregnant women/month are without prenatal health care coverage due to funding cuts. In addition, continue to advocate for removal of certain new requirements to the Texas CHIP program (i.e. reducing continuous eligibility for newborns from 12 months to six months and eliminating coverage for smoking cessation programs). Texas has the largest number of uninsured children in the country.

• Smoking Cessation - Work with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission regarding requiring mandatory point of sale health warnings for tobacco products, specifically of the risk factor for preterm birth.

• Immunization - Work to eliminate the conscientious objection to immunizations by taking a leadership role in a newly formed statewide immunization coalition. Texas ranks 45th in immunization coverage for its children.
  

Legislative Lookout

Speaker of the House Tom Craddick issued some 180 interim charges to 36 standing and four select committees (three of which are new) on November 4, 2003. The March of Dimes will work with the following committees and charges:

• House Committee on Public Health: Charge #4 "Collect, review and report on the statistics and statewide impact of drug and alcohol abuse by pregnant women on the unborn."

• House Committee on Insurance: Charge #3 "Monitor the implementation of SB 10 and SB 541, 78th Legislature, in relationship to the costs and availability of health insurance coverage."

• House Select Committee on Health Care Expenditures: Charge #2 "Study the effects of 'crowd out' in the Children's Health Insurance Program and Medicaid Program to determine accurate data and to ascertain if additional policy changes are needed to prevent 'crowd out' of private insurance and escalating public insurance costs."

• House Committee on Appropriations: Charge #1 "Analyze the structure of the General Appropriations Act; including the 'building blocks' concept, methods to provide greater transparency within agency bill patterns, standards for capital budgets and the number and effectiveness of performance measures (joint interim charge with Senate Finance Committee)." Charge #3 "Examine the number of general revenue dedicated accounts and accounts held outside the state treasury. This evaluation should consider account balances, revenue sources and historical uses of funds."

Dates to Remember:
  
January 28, 2004 - State Public Affairs Committee meeting
March 9, 2004 - Primary Elections for legislative and other offices held
April 13, 2004 - Primary Run-Off Elections for legislative and other offices held
May 26, 2004 - State Public Affairs Committee meeting
August 25, 2004 - State Public Affairs Committee meeting
September 29, 2004 - State Public Affairs Committee meeting
November 2, 2004 - General Election for legislative and other offices held
November 8, 2004 - Prefiling of legislation for 79th Legislature begins
January 11, 2005 - 79th Legislature convenes
February 2005 - March of Dimes Lobby Day
March 11, 2005 - Bill Filing deadline
May 30, 2005 - 79th Legislature adjourns
June 19, 2005 - Governor’s Veto Proclamation deadline
August 29, 2005 - Effective date of bills without otherwise specified dates

If you have an event date, a statistic, or story to print in the Legislative Update, please send the information to Jorey Berry. All requests will be reviewed for publishing.

For information concerning this newsletter, contact:
Jorey Berry
State Director of Public Affairs
March of Dimes, Texas Chapter
901 South Mopac, Suite 195
Austin, TX 78746
Jberry@marchofdimes.com