Children's health insurance program hangs in limbo as Congress struggles to extend it

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers’ assurances that they’ll soon renew the Children’s Health Insurance Program are of little comfort to Andrew Montoya, whose three daughters are covered by the program.

The uncertainty surrounding federal funding for the insurance program has him rethinking his current job as a non-profit attorney along with every routine purchase.

As members of Congress debate ways to pay for the program, Montoya said the prospect that he and his family may need several hundred dollars more per month to cover health care premiums is constantly on their minds.

“It’s caused such major upheaval in our lives that it’s impossible not to think about,” said Montoya, of Longmont, Colo.

CHIP, a federal-state matching program that serves nearly nine million moderately low-income children, is among the urgent priorities that seem to have gotten lost amid congressional efforts to repeal Obamacare and revise the tax code.

After funding expired Sept. 30, Congress in December authorized a short-term patch of $2.85 billion for the program through March, though it's unclear how long those funds will last.

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A five-year reauthorization of the program, which costs the federal government about $14.5 billion a year, has bipartisan support. The debate instead focuses on how to offset the costs of the program.

That may have gotten easier with a Jan. 5 estimate showing that a Senate bill to extend CHIP would increase deficits by $800 million over 10 years, far lower than the previous projection of more than $8 billion. By comparison, the tax overhaul passed in December is expected to add $1.8 trillion to the debt over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Congressional leaders are working on a deal to extend the program for five years, possibly as part of a broader agreement to fund the government before a Jan. 19 deadline. But it’s unclear whether CHIP will be resolved by then or at a later point.

“We share a commitment to extend full funding for CHIP, with offsets, as soon as possible,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a joint statement last month. “We will be vigilant to ensure this program isn’t subject to repeated short-term fixes and constantly looming deadlines.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called for the program’s renewal on Twitter last month. But former Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who strongly supported the program as First Lady when it was enacted in 1997, put the onus on him to advance legislation.

“Families across America had to start 2018 worried that their kids wouldn’t have health care,” she tweeted. "You control the Senate agenda @SenateMajLdr. Enough is enough.”

Before the latest cash infusion, several states sent letters to parents warning that the program was in jeopardy absent congressional action. Montoya wasn’t surprised to receive his letter, but it left him with “kind of a hopeless feeling.”

Like other CHIP parents, he earns too much for his children to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to pay for private health insurance. The CHIP benefits allow him to continue his work as a civil rights attorney, providing free representation for people with disabilities. His wife previously worked at a camera store when they lived in Florida but now stays at home with their 3-year-old daughter.

“I could go out and get a different job or go out and demand higher pay,” he said. “I know there are thousands of families in Colorado who don’t have that ability. That says nothing about the tens of thousands more around the nation.”

Governors have urged lawmakers to pass long-term legislation. Before the short-term funding patch, federal officials redistributed reserve funds to states to keep their programs running.

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Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, said she’s frustrated with Congress for not making the bill a priority. Her state has other health care funding issues, and yet she’s spending her time worrying about Oregon’s 80,000 children and pregnant women on the program and working to raise the profile of a bipartisan insurance program she never expected would be in jeopardy.

“It’s nonsensical and it’s frustrating and it’s ridiculous, honestly,” said Brown, vice chair of the National Governors Association Health and Human Services Committee. "It feels to me like, if Congress really cared, they would address children’s health care.”