Chipping Away at CHIP
Source: BY AMY SMITH, Austin Chronicle (TX), March 23, 2006
........Now comes word of another setback for CHIP as the Health and Human Services Commission begins transitioning some of its job responsibilities to a private contractor – Texas ACCESS Alliance, a consortium led by Accenture, the Bermuda-based outsourcing giant with a checkered record of performance in several states. The privatization shift began just as tighter eligibility rules and new enrollment fees went into effect, causing widespread confusion and more paperwork for CHIP clients, and sending the program's enrollment figures into freefall, leaving nearly 30,000 CHIP clients in the lurch. As a result, the start of the new year saw CHIP's overall enrollment drop to 295,000, the program's lowest figure since its earliest existence. ...... Responding to growing alarm over the state's haphazard privatization efforts – in an election year, no less – Gov. Rick Perry recently prodded the HHSC to re-enroll 6,000 children who were mistakenly dropped from CHIP coverage.