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Short-term patches from Congress might be inadequate to support CHIP
Congress provided the Children’s Health Insurance Program with an additional $3 million, a short-term solution to keep the program funded, according to CNN.
This decision was made on Thursday evening and will support the program until March 2018; however, without a long-term solution in sight, millions of children may be at risk for losing health insurance coverage.
A combined statement from the AAP, Children’s Defense Fund, Children’s Dental Health Project, the Children’s Hospital Association, Family Voices, First Focus Campaign for Children, March of Dimes and the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners calls congressional inaction “the greatest threat to children’s health care coverage.”
“States have already started to notify families that they may not have a source of coverage should Congress fail to enact a long-term extension of CHIP funding, and several states have started to use funds meant to operate the program to start shutting it down,” they said in the statement. “The short-term CHIP funding included in the House spending bill is not enough to prevent states from continuing these actions, and only causes more chaos and confusion on the ground.”
“What states and families need is stability,” they continued. “Instead, what they get from the House measure is a continuation of a dangerous trend: temporary, inadequate CHIP funding patches, delivered at the last possible moment with no comprehensive relief or assurance.”
According to a report published this week by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families, it was projected that an estimated 1.9 million children within the United States would lose health insurance coverage by January if Congress could not approve long-term funding. This number was expected to increase by an additional 1 million children because more could have lost coverage through CHIP by the end of February.
“The policy for a 5-year CHIP extension has had bipartisan support for months now, so there are no more excuses for kicking this can down the road any further,” Joan Alker, MPhil, executive director of the Center for Children and Families and research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, said in a press release. “Families need the peace of mind that their child’s coverage will not disappear as the new year begins.”
Additionally, the AMA has also expressed confusion as to why a 5-year plan has not been approved.
The health insurance program expired on Sept. 30, and a short-term resolution was signed into law on Dec. 8. This temporary solution transferred $2.9 billion available for redistribution to all states to 20 states who experienced shortfalls between October and December. According to the statement issued by the children’s health organizations, the largest barrier to a 5-year plan is “political will.”
“There is bipartisan policy ready to be passed right now to extend CHIP funding for 5 years,” they said in the statement. “Both chambers of Congress support it … Congress must take the opportunity to pass 5-year CHIP funding extension on a bill this week to fund the federal government.” – by Katherine Bortz
Disclosures: Infectious Diseases in Children was unable to obtain disclosure information prior to publication.