http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2016/11/07/no-matter-what-congress-will-act-on-health-care-next-year/

When Congress passed the Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act (MACRA) last year, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) said “stick a fork in it; it’s finally done.” While some elements—especially Medicare’s long-flawed Sustainable Growth Rate formula—were permanently remedied, other provisions were temporarily addressed by the bill and come due again in September or December of next year.

So, while the presidential candidates and others consider broad-based health care policies, the passage of which in the near term is dubious, there is a wide array of issues we can bank on Congress taking up, likely in one, consolidated legislative package.

Funding for the CHIP program may be the foremost among these issues, accompanied by a batch of expiring Medicare “extenders” that Congress typically addresses before they lapse. These provisions, which used to reliably hitch a ride on perennial “doc fix” legislation, are expected to travel together in a bill that, along with Food and Drug Administration user fee reauthorizations, is among a few must-pass health bills in 2017. The package will begin to take shape early in the next Congress and ideally gain focus by spring to give states lead-time for budgetary planning, especially with regard to the CHIP and Medicaid components.

Last year, Senate Democrats pushed for a four-year CHIP funding reauthorization, which would have aligned CHIP funding with the Affordable Care Act’s reauthorization of the program itself through 2019. Their efforts fell short in MACRA, although a two-year funding reauthorization keeps the program in the clear until Sept. 30, 2017.

While it’s early to predict what will be included, we anticipate the following potential items will likely be considered in this CHIP funding and Medicare extenders package: