It's been 100 days since the Republican Congress allowed funding to expire for the Children's Health Insurance Program and community health centers, and the only thing those Republicans have done about it is to pass a Band-Aid of $2.85 billion in temporary funding. That was supposed to last until March. For a number of states, it won't. They're going to be out of money by January 19.
The $2.85 billion was supposed to fund states’ CHIP programs through March 31. But some states will start running out of money after Jan. 19, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS did not say which states are likely to be affected first.
The latest estimates for when federal funding runs out could cause states to soon freeze enrollment and alert parents that the program could soon shut down. […]
"The funding … should carry all the states through January 19th based upon best estimates of state expenditures to date," said CMS spokesman Johnathan Monroe. "However, due to a number of variables relating to state expenditure rates and reporting, we are unable to say with certainty whether there is enough funding for every state to continue its CHIP program through March 31, 2018."
There is absolutely no reason for Congress not to pass a clean, five-year funding bill for the 9 million kids on CHIP. Republicans can't even claim that we can't afford it anymore, not since they passed the Obamacare mandate repeal in their tax bill. As a result of that, enough adults will be kicked off insurance to save enough to make CHIP basically free.
The Senate has a clean, bipartisan five-year funding bill at the ready. There's no reason it can't go to the floor tomorrow, other than Republican resistance to give up this handy hostage.
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.