CHIP provides insurance for roughly 9 million low-income children. Its federal funding deadline was Sept. 30, and if Congress does not work soon to restore the program, money that states provide toward CHIP could run out between December and March 2018, according to a Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission report from July.
The Senate drafted a standalone CHIP reauthorization bill in early September, but the House has yet to come up with its bill. Senate leaders agreed to a five-year extension for CHIP, but representatives are pushing for more comprehensive funding that would support other measures like community health centers.
Since CHIP was enacted in 1997, the uninsured rate for children in the U.S has dropped from 14.5 percent to 4.5 percent in 2015.
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