The Children’s Health Insurance Program is likely to be funded for six years after the Senate passed a short-term deal to fund the government.
The short-term deal to fund the government through Feb. 8 and end a three-day shutdown includes a six-year reauthorization of CHIP. It passed the Senate on Monday and is heading to the House, where it is also expected to pass and go to President Trump, who is expected to sign it.
The CHIP deal is likely to save the government some funding after the Congressional Budget Office previously estimated a 10-year reauthorization would save the government $6 billion. The reason is a lower matching rate for states that goes into effect in 2021 and fewer families signing up their children for CHIP because of the repeal of Obamacare’s requirement for everyone to get insurance.
CHIP is traditionally a bipartisan program but has been mired in partisan skirmishes since it expired Sept. 30.
The program provides insurance to nearly 9 million children in low-income families. States rely on matching funds from the federal government to provide the coverage and have been getting by since Sept. 30 through unused funding from the prior year.
The Dec. 22 short-term spending deal that funded the government through Jan. 19 included $3 billion to tide states over until the end of March. However, a report from Georgetown University found that 11 states would run out of funds at the end of February.
Both parties have battled over how CHIP should be funded. The House passed a bill in November that funded the program through raising Medicare premiums for wealthy seniors and raiding an Obamacare disease prevention fund.
The Senate Finance Committee passed in October its own version of CHIP reauthorization but it did not include funding offsets and never reached the Senate floor.
Republicans attached a six-year deal for CHIP to a deal to fund the government through Feb. 16. But most House Democrats voted against it, as did Senate Democrats late Friday night in a vote that triggered the government shutdown.
Senate Democrats were upset the four-week deal did not include protections for “dreamers” who came to the U.S. illegally as children. Democrats also charged that Republicans were holding CHIP hostage.
Republicans were using CHIP “as a weapon instead of passing it back in October,” said Sen. Bob Casey, R-Pa., on Friday before he voted against the short-term deal to keep the government open through Feb. 16.
Republicans, meanwhile, sought to highlight Democrats’ refusal to back a bill that included CHIP.
“On Thursday, this House responsibly passed a bill to keep the government open and extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers nearly 9 million children from low-income families,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in remarks on the House floor Saturday. “No games, no strings attached. A straightforward bill. We did our job. But Senate Democrats simply refused to do theirs.”
The short-term deal also includes two-year delays to both Obamacare’s medical device tax and a tax on high-cost health plans. It includes a one-year delay for 2019 for the health insurance tax.
