CHIP Gets Two Years of Funding Under Senate Health Bill

It’s not the five years of additional funding many advocates were hoping for, but the Senate’s compromise on health reform does include money to extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program for two additional years, thereby preventing millions of CHIP kids from shifting into private plans on newly created insurance exchanges at the end of 2013.

Some analysts, including the Congressional Budget Office, have warned that the out-of-pocket costs for low-income families would be significantly higher if such a shift happened, leaving fewer kids with health insurance in the name of expanding coverage. (The House reform bill repeals CHIP altogether at the end of 2013.)

Fearing that very scenario, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) reauthorized CHIP through 2019 during October’s Senate Finance Committee deliberations. Rockefeller’s provision didn’t come with additional money, however, prompting Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) more recently to push an amendment funding CHIP through 2019. The Senate compromise bill includes part of that additional money, extending funding through September of 2015.

While many kids’ health care advocates are cheering that move, there remains some concern that Senate leaders couldn’t find a way to fund a longer extension. “There is chaos beginning October 2015,” warned one children’s welfare advocate.

The Senate’s two-year funding extension for CHIP also sets the stage for a showdown between Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House, where leaders continue to support their plan to terminate the program four years from now. But that is a discussion for January.