Hogan On Children's Health Insurance Program: 'Needy Kids Should Never Become A Political Football'
BALTIMORE (CNN Money/WJZ) -- Governor Larry Hogan is pleading with Congress to reauthorize funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Since federal funding for the program expired in September, some states have been able to keep their CHIP programs going by using their unspent allotments and by receiving grants from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. But many are expected to run out of money soon.
CHIP covers about nine million children whose parents usually earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private health coverage. A typical family of four, with children covered by CHIP, earns no more than $62,000 a year.
Some 16 states project they'll exhaust their funds by the end of January, while another 20 states and the District of Columbia say they can last either until February or March, according to a recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Some states will terminate their plans once the money is gone. Colorado has already sent a letter to parents saying the program may end on Jan. 31 if Congress doesn't reauthorize the funding. Utah and Oklahoma have posted notices on their websites that warn that coverage may end or be reduced.
Other states must continue insuring the children, but will have to foot more of the bill themselves. This will wreak havoc on those state budgets.
In Maryland, according to Hogan, the program serves more than 146,000 children, and the fiscal impact on the state would be "substantial." He projects the state would run out of funding by April.
In a letter dated Dec. 12 and addressed to Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi, Hogan asked for "immediate bipartisan action" to reauthorize the program before the end of the year.
"Governors across the country were extremely concerned and disappointed when federal funding was allowed to expire in September," he wrote. "Meeting the federal commitment to this program soon will avoid unnecessary disruption to the health care needs of millions of our children in the coming year. We should all be able to agree that needy kids should never become a political football."
Other state leaders who have written to Congress urging a re-authorization of CHIP funding include the governors of Alaska, Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Virginia.
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