BUDGET/HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE(ACA): “With more and more states running out of money for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, parents took their case to Capitol Hill on Tuesday [12-19-17], pleading with Congress to provide money before their sons and daughters lose health care and coverage.
But the program, known as CHIP, which insures nearly nine million children, took a back seat as lawmakers raced to pass a $1.5 trillion tax cut. CHIP’s fate, it appears, is now caught up in a messy fight over an end-of-the-year deal on spending that must be struck by Friday to avert a government shutdown…
Congress has known since April 2015 that funds for the popular children’s insurance program — created and sustained for two decades with bipartisan support — would expire this year at the end of September. The Senate Finance Committee approved a five-year extension of funding for the program in early October, but did not specify how to pay for it — and Republicans insist that it must be paid for.
The House passed a bill to provide five years of funds in early November, but those funds would come from public health programs set up under the Affordable Care Act and an increase in premiums for affluent Medicare beneficiaries, provisions that are unacceptable to most Democrats. House Republicans plan to send those same provisions to the Senate again this week as part of a stopgap spending bill, knowing they will be killed.”
-Robert Pear, “With Children’s Health Program Running Dry, Parents Beg Congress: ‘Do the Right Thing’,” The New York Times online, Dec. 19, 2017