As a matter of fact, one of the potential big advantages to the private bi-national health insurance was that it would take the burden off of SCHIPS -- a program most conservatives loathe.
Again, this was a conservative, private market approach to solving the insurance problem in Texas. You should be praising Perry for it, but you are so blinded by your hatred of the man, that you just can't see it.
The news is so old, there aren't many links for me to share about it. Here is one from a WaPo blogger that outlines some of the same points I am making though:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/rick-perry-was-right-on-binational-health-insurance/2011/09/01/gIQAPgdcuJ_blog.html
P.S. -- the blog entry is not from left-wing hack Ezra Klein. It is from their health care reporter.
Huh?! Are you serious?! lot's look all the elements of the story independently and with respects to their proper timeline.
2001 Rick Perrys policiy for Bi-national Healthcare SPECIFIES setting aside an additional $4 billion to the Medicaid program, and more than $900 million to the Childrens Health Insurance Program. At the same time he urges legislators (NOT PRIVATE HEALTH COMPANIES) to pass a telemedicine pilot program that will enable, through technology, a sick border resident of limited financial means to receive care from a specialist hundreds of miles away
The article you point to is seriously distorted in it's timeline since it talks about a study done in 2003 and released in 2005, that proposes selling private health insurance to illegal immigrants to reward them and protect them for entering the country illegally. (Which apparently wasn't commissioned by the state of Texas).
Anyways the original WaPo article doesn't actually source anything to the 2001 claim that what Rick Perry was proposing was based on private health insurance.