It's Day 75 since Children's Health Insurance Program funding expired, with Republicans continuing to refuse to provide clean funding for the program. As of today, the only thing Congress is thinking about is tax cuts for the rich—even MORE tax cuts for the rich, in fact, and screwing working families even worse. Meanwhile, these 16 states are looking at imminent disaster for their kids on CHIP. The Kaiser Family Foundation lays it all out.
Remaining funds available to states, including redistribution funds, are limited and anticipated to run out soon. Federal stopgap funds available to states include remaining federal funds from each state's federal fiscal year (FY) 2017 CHIP allotment and redistribution funding from prior years provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from a limited amount of unspent funds across all states. However, once states exhaust those funds, no additional funds will be available unless Congress enacts legislation. As of December 6, 2017, nine states have exhausted their FY 2017 allotments and have received redistribution funds from CMS to continue coverage. CMS is expected to release the final redistribution payments in the near-term, but these amounts will be insufficient to cover states' FY 2018 CHIP shortfalls.
A third of states anticipate exhausting funding by the end of January 2018 (Figure 1). Among the 48 states that provided an estimate of when they will exhaust federal funds, including the 38 states that provided an update in November 2017, 16 states projected they will exhaust federal funds by the end of January 2018, and an additional 21 states projected they will exhaust federal funds by the end of March 2018. State projections are fluid and change as enrollment and costs fluctuate and states receive redistribution funds.
And this: "further delay in Congressional action is likely to result in confusion among families that could lead to coverage losses and administrative costs even if funding is extended in the next few weeks." The damage is already being done, and getting worse every single day this doesn't happen.
Jam the phone lines of House and Senate Republicans. Call (202) 224-3121, and tell them to stop holding kids hostage and to pass a clean funding bill for CHIP and community health centers.