Though, to be fair, it wasn’t through some intentional belt-tightening free-marketing tax-cutting cruelty-injecting policy action, but by simply never getting around to renewing the CHIP program.
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.
But I’m sure the GOP-led Congress has Top Men working on a solution. Top. Men.
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.
Well, at least they had their priorities straight.
Time’s up: As CHIP expires unrenewed, Congress blows a chance to save healthcare for 9 million children
Congressional dysfunction has placed a healthcare program for kids in jeopardy.
