A two-week spending bill to fund the government would provide help for several states low on money for the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The joint resolution released Monday would fund the government until Dec. 22. It also would allow for emergency funding to states until the end of the year as Congress has yet to fully fund the program.
While most states won’t run out of CHIP funding until early next year, a few states are in danger of running out of money this month.
The Trump administration has been giving those states redistribution funding, which is CHIP funding that wasn’t spent in prior years. CHIP provides block grants to states to fund health insurance for low-income children.
In October, five states — Minnesota, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and California — received redistribution funding, according to a report from the congressional advisory panel Medicare and CHIP Payment Advisory Commission.
The new legislation, expected to be voted on this week, details how a state can receive redistribution funding and how much a state should get.
CHIP expired Sept. 30 without any new funding agreement.
The House passed a five-year reauthorization bill in October but it has gone nowhere in the Senate because Democrats object to funding offsets that include raiding an Obamacare disease prevention fund.
