CONGRESS seldom agrees on health care, as is shown by the Republicans’ fruitless attempts to rip up the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. A longtime exception to partisan feuds was the Children’s Health Insurance Programme (CHIP), established in 1997. The scheme, which covers some 9m American children, has been credited, along with Medicaid, health insurance for the poor, and Obamacare, with reducing the share of children without health insurance from 14% to a record low of 5% over the past 20 years. But on September 30th federal funding for CHIP expired. State agencies, which administer the programme with federal grants, are running short of cash and are on the cusp of issuing notices cancelling policies.
Lawmakers, who must offer a fix to restore the funds, are dithering while Republican leaders concentrate on grander legislation. Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah, a rock-ribbed Republican and a grandfather of CHIP, and Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, have offered a bipartisan patch...Continue reading
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