Yahoo! News - States Cut Health Insurance for 145,000 Kids
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some 145,000 poor children were dropped from a U.S. federal-state health insurance plan in the second half of 2003, with more than half the cuts made by Texas, a health-care research foundation said on Friday.

"The drop in (the) State Children's Health Insurance Program is a major setback when millions of uninsured children are eligible but not yet enrolled," said Diane Rowland, executive director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

In many cases, states made the cuts because a weak economy left them with huge budget deficits.

Along with Texas, two other states -- Maryland and New York -- accounted for most of the cuts in the program last year. The two eastern states each cut 23,000 low-income children, the report said.

A total of 11 states sliced enrollment, with "noteworthy" cuts made in Florida, Colorado and South Carolina, the report said.