It's Day 80 since the Children's Health Insurance Program funding expired, with Republicans continuing to refuse to provide clean funding for it and community health centers. But, hey, they have no problem passing a tax cuts bill. Just one part of that bill, the pass-through business tax break, will cost the government at least $40 billion a year in lost revenue, according to Joint Commission on Taxation estimates.
Children's health costs $15 billion a year.
The Senate Finance Committee did its work weeks ago on this. They passed out a bipartisan CHIP bill that would have funded the program, with no strings attached, for five years. McConnell and Sen. Orrin Hatch, head of the Finance Committee, decided that tax cuts were more important. They decided that it was more politically profitable for them to create more of a crisis for CHIP, that it was a handy hostage. So here we are.
Oh, and those parents worried about their children that McConnell pretends to care about? The parents in Connecticut whose kids on are CHIP just found out the program is ending Jan. 31. Because Congress hasn't acted.
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.