Texas Attorney General Opinion: GA-0327 Page: 2 of 15
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The Honorable Mike Stafford - Page 2
grandchildren, who are 19 years of age or older be enrolled as full-time students at
an educational institution in order to be covered under the self-funded County Plan.
Whether the self-funded County Plan must provide coverage for grandchildren who
are not tax dependents of a covered County employee or retiree and, if so, whether
the self-funded County Plan can end coverage before age 25, set a different premium
for grandchildren than for children, and require that grandchildren be enrolled in an
educational institution.
Whether the self-funded County Plan must provide coverage for stepchildren and/or
grandchildren who do not live in the home of a covered County employee or retiree,
and whether the self-funded County Plan may require a different premium for such
stepchildren and/or grandchildren than for the natural or adopted children of a
covered County employee or retiree.
Harris County Brief, supra note 1, at 1.
You inform us that the Plan originally began on March 1, 2004 and that the new Plan year
commenced on March 1, 2005. See Request Letter, supra note 1, at 1. In 2003, the legislature
repealed many of the insurance provisions contained in the Revised Civil Statutes (hereinafter "civil
statutes"), see Act of May 30, 2003, 78th Leg., R.S., ch. 1274, 26, 2003 Tex. Gen. Laws 3611,
4138, and enacted additional titles to the codified Insurance Code. See TEX. INS. CODE ANN.
30.001(a) (Vemon Pamphlet 2004-05) ("This title and Titles 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 13 are enacted
as part of the state's continuing statutory revision program .... The program contemplates ...
revision of the state's general and permanent statute law without substantive change."). The
nonsubstantive codification of the Texas Insurance Code became effective April 1, 2005, one month
after the new Plan year began. See Act of May 30, 2003, 78th Leg., R.S., ch. 1274, 28, 2003 Tex.
Gen. Laws 3611, 4139 ("This Act takes effect April 1, 2005."). Thus, the civil statutes apply to the
current Plan year that commenced on March 1, 2005. Because the codified Insurance Code did not
become effective until April 1, 2005, a date after the commencement of the new Plan year, the
codified Insurance Code does not apply to the Plan until its next renewal date, see TEX. GOV'T CODE
ANN. 311.022 (Vernon 2005) ("A statute is presumed to be prospective in its operation unless
expressly made retrospective."), which we assume from information provided in your letter to be
March 1, 2006. However, because any future amendments to the Plan in the current Plan year will
occur under the codified Insurance Code (hereinafter, "Insurance Code"), as will subsequent plans
and plan amendments, you ask about and our opinion analyzes the Insurance Code; not the civil
statutes.2 In addition, although the recent codification is intended to be nonsubstantive, we must be
mindful of the principle set forth in the Texas Supreme Court opinion Fleming Foods of Texas, Inc.
v. Rylander, 6 S.W.3d 278 (Tex. 1999), that when "specific provisions of a 'nonsubstantive'
codification and the code as a whole are direct, unambiguous, and cannot be reconciled with prior
law, the codification rather than the prior, repealed statute must be given effect." Fleming Foods,
6 S.W.3d at 286.2you do not ask and we do not address whether the Plan complies with the civil statutes.
(GA-0327)
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: GA-0327, text, May 20, 2005; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth275223/m1/2/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.