CHIP Reauthorization for 2018

by  Jared Staheli, MPP
Dec 26th, 2017

The authorization for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding expired at the end of September 2017. The aim of the program is to fund health insurance for children in families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance. Without reauthorization, 9 million children are at risk of losing access to health care. States have been funding the program since the expiration with leftover funding, but are running out of money. Some states have already begun informing families with children enrolled in CHIP that they may lose access to health insurance in the coming months. Sixteen states will run out of funding at the end of January 2018, with other states scheduled to run out of funding in the following months.

The “stopgap” funding bill, signed by President Trump on December 8^th to fund government operations through December 21^nd, will provide unused federal money to the states most at-risk of running out of funding for the program. However, the bill only provides funding for a limited time. Congress needs to pass further appropriations to ensure continued coverage. More emergency stopgap measures will only leave uncertainty and depleted state coffers; a more permanent extension needs to be signed into law to avoid these problems.

There are bills in progress aiming to remedy the situation. A five-year extension for CHIP funding was passed in the House in November, while a Senate bill doing the same was introduced in September, but has not been voted on due to hold-ups from other legislative priorities. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, one of the co-sponsors of the original CHIP bill, has assured concerned parties that CHIP will be fine, saying, “We're gonna do CHIP. There's no question about it in my mind, and it's gotta be done the right way.”