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GOP Congress let CHIP, which gives health care to 9 million kids & pregnant women, expire last night
http://abcnews.go.com/US/program-low-cost-health-care-9m-children-set/story?id=50188069http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-chip-funding-20170929-story,amp.html
Advocates for children’s health started worrying months ago that congressional incompetence would jeopardize the nation’s one indisputable healthcare success — the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which has reduced the uninsured rate among kids to 5% from 14% over the two decades of its existence.
Their fears turned out to be true. Funding for CHIP runs out on Saturday, and no vote on reestablishing the program’s $15-billion appropriation is expected for at least a week, probably longer. That’s the case even though CHIP is one of the few federal programs that has enjoyed unalloyed bipartisan support since its inception in 1997. The consequences will be dire in many states, which will have to curtail or even shut down their children’s health programs until funding is restored. Hanging in the balance is care for 9 million children and pregnant women in low-income households.
What happened? The simple answer is that congressional Republicans’ last harebrained attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act got in the way. A funding bill for CHIP seemed to be well on its way to enactment until a week or so ago. That’s when the effort to pass the egregious Cassidy-Graham repeal bill sucked all the air out of the legislative room.
Agreement on a bill had been reached in mid-September by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “Momentum was building,” says Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, a children’s advocacy group in Washington. Then came Cassidy-Graham, and “we couldn’t even get a meeting,” Lesley says. “No one was even taking our calls.”
The impact of delay varies by state, because states are able to apply unspent CHIP money in any fiscal year to the next year. But even those with money in their coffers can’t escape the consequences of Congress’ inaction. Because they can’t merely assume that Congress will eventually get around to reauthorizing the funding, they have to start planning to shut down their programs now, or reallocate funding from other social programs. According to Medicaid officials, who manage CHIP from the federal end, California, Arizona, Minnesota and North Carolina will run out of CHIP funding by December or early in January. Half the states won’t make it beyond the first three months of 2018. Some will run out of money next week.
-snip-
Their fears turned out to be true. Funding for CHIP runs out on Saturday, and no vote on reestablishing the program’s $15-billion appropriation is expected for at least a week, probably longer. That’s the case even though CHIP is one of the few federal programs that has enjoyed unalloyed bipartisan support since its inception in 1997. The consequences will be dire in many states, which will have to curtail or even shut down their children’s health programs until funding is restored. Hanging in the balance is care for 9 million children and pregnant women in low-income households.
What happened? The simple answer is that congressional Republicans’ last harebrained attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act got in the way. A funding bill for CHIP seemed to be well on its way to enactment until a week or so ago. That’s when the effort to pass the egregious Cassidy-Graham repeal bill sucked all the air out of the legislative room.
Agreement on a bill had been reached in mid-September by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “Momentum was building,” says Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, a children’s advocacy group in Washington. Then came Cassidy-Graham, and “we couldn’t even get a meeting,” Lesley says. “No one was even taking our calls.”
The impact of delay varies by state, because states are able to apply unspent CHIP money in any fiscal year to the next year. But even those with money in their coffers can’t escape the consequences of Congress’ inaction. Because they can’t merely assume that Congress will eventually get around to reauthorizing the funding, they have to start planning to shut down their programs now, or reallocate funding from other social programs. According to Medicaid officials, who manage CHIP from the federal end, California, Arizona, Minnesota and North Carolina will run out of CHIP funding by December or early in January. Half the states won’t make it beyond the first three months of 2018. Some will run out of money next week.
-snip-
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Would you poor people just die already!"
Those moocher children should get some boot straps to pull themselves up.
