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The state stands to lose up to $115 million a year if Congress doesn't renew a program that helps to cover nearly 118,000 children here. The Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, expired on Sept. 30 because of Congress not acting to reauthorize it, and the money in the program is beginning to run out. (Stein, 11/28)

Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration is trying to avoid mailing health insurance cancellation notices to nearly half a million children three days before Christmas. Unless it can get $90 million more in federal funding, though, Texas will end its Children’s Health Insurance Program on Jan. 31. It would send notices about the program’s termination to affected families on Dec. 22. More than 400,000 children of the working poor currently are covered under CHIP, as the state-federal program is known. (Wang, 11/28)