It's Day 79 since the Children's Health Insurance Program funding expired, with Republicans continuing to refuse to provide clean funding for it and community health centers. Together the programs provide care to about 34 million children, pregnant women, and low-income working families. While Republican leadership keeps paying lip-service to the program and pretending like they care, this is the damage being done, right now, in Alabama.
Important Notice: Effective January 1, 2018, ALL Kids will no longer enroll children. All applications and renewal forms received on or after that date will be processed for Medicaid eligibility or referred to the Health Insurance Marketplace. Children currently enrolled in ALL Kids will continue to receive benefits for now. If Congress does not act soon, coverage for active ALL Kids enrollees will be terminated effective February 1, 2018, regardless of the "Good Thru Date" on their ALL Kids insurance card.
You can apply for new health coverage and financial assistance for any person losing ALL Kids coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace by calling 1-800-318-2596 or visiting their website, HealthCare.gov.
Connecticut and Colorado will shut down their programs on Jan. 31 if the funding isn't made available within in the next few weeks. Minnesota and Arizona are out of money and California and Oregon are nearly there. Then there's this:
The sudden end to CHIP programs would trigger a special enrollment period for the kids who need to move to a qualified health plan. As of press time, the CMS did not respond to a query of how the agency would manage the enrollment period for the federally facilitated marketplace.
That could be a big problem in states like Alabama and the 38 others which rely on the federal government exchange. There's a big question as to whether the Trump administration would open up the exchange to accept these families. When the administration was asked to extend the deadline for Obamacare sign-ups Friday night to accommodate a surge of last-minutes applications, it refused to do so. That left people hanging.
Just as all the CHIP families and all the people who rely on community health centers are hanging right now, along with healthcare providers and hospitals and state officials. And decent human beings everywhere. Congressional Republicans are taking deplorable to whole new levels.
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.