Tag Archives: Kicking the Can down the Road

Congress floats temporary patch for CHIP funding shortfalls

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/cms-chip/congress-floats-temporary-patch-for-chip-funding-shortfalls?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkdKallqUmhOV1prTmpZMyIsInQiOiIzV0NnWXA2amJKeHRybHVFTWl3bCtXMHpQXC92SXRnZyt0WGV0VFFUTkxoQk1UTHlyMGRlTFZkc3V2aXM0cGY5Q1Fndmh0ck5venI0OVJVMWhpNHQrakJWSytReEVBc2N4Y1lwRXBHQmZ2RGR6bk9cLzJxREZIbDk2VWQ2bzFKSmZvIn0%3D&mrkid=959610&utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

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In its short-term appropriations bill, Congress has included a provision aimed at helping states keep their Children’s Health Insurance Programs afloat while lawmakers try to pass a longer-term measure. But that gesture may not go nearly far enough.

The bill would direct the secretary of Health and Human Services to allocate previously unused CHIP funding first to “emergency shortfall states”—or ones that are in danger of running out of money—before other states. The federal government has already been redistributing funding from past years to states that were facing shortfalls in October and November.

Those shortfalls exist because federal funding for CHIP expired Sept. 30, and Congress’ efforts to pass funding reauthorization measure have been stalled by partisan disputes over how to pay for it. The Senate Finance Committee has advanced its version of a CHIP bill—which doesn’t outline any offsets—while a companion bill, containing cuts to other healthcare programs, cleared the House despite Democrats’ objections.

If Congress fails to pass a long-term CHIP funding measure, at least five states and the District of Columbia predict they will run out of money for the program by the end of 2017 or early in January, according to a survey from the Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. Some states have already sent notices to families advising them to start researching private health insurance options.

The center’s executive director, Joan Alker, also isn’t impressed by the CHIP provision in the short-term appropriations bill, calling it a sign Congress is trying to “kick the can down the road.”

“The longer Congress postpones action on long-term CHIP funding, the more states will be forced to waste time and money developing contingency plans,” she wrote in a blog post, adding, “the more states that send out notices, the more likely it will be that some kids will fall through the cracks.”

The only option left to the Senate is to make health care reform someone else’s problem

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The only option left to the Senate is to make health care reform someone else’s problem

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I wish I had more time to blog. I really do. But I’m consumed with grant submissions, mentoring researchers, and writing columns about health policy because it’s clear that someone’s got to do it.

That said, I’m taking ten minutes out of my day here to rant. Read it or don’t.

If it hasn’t become abundantly clear, the only thing left for Republican Senators to try is to kick the can down the road. Again. They’re going to try and pass a bill which gives less money overall to states, a lot less money to some states, and then tells them to “figure it out”. Later, they can claim that they gave the states all the tools they needed to fix the health care system, so now it’s THEIR fault things don’t work.

This is ridiculous.

There is no magic. There is no innovation. If there was a way to make the health care system broader, cheaper, and better, we would do it right now. We would have done it years ago. No matter what you may think of Democrats in 2009, they didn’t choose the ACA because they wanted to keep states from fixing the health care system. The ACA was the best they could get.

There are no governors, of red or blue states, who have a magic plan for health care innovation. There are no state legislators (who likely work part-time) who have a secret plan to unleash the power of federalism. The Republicans in Congress have had seven years, all the money in the world, the phone numbers of every conservative wonk in the country, the CBO, experts eager to offer their help… If they couldn’t figure this out, do they think that Montana will? Oklahoma? Indiana? In less than two years?

THERE IS NO WAY TO SPEND LESS, COVER MORE, AND MAKE IT BETTER.

Pretty much every health care organization is against this bill. The organization of Medicaid directors is against this bill. Most governors are against this bill. Nearly every wonk I can think of is against this bill.

There are legitimate ways to reform the health care system according to conservative principles. They all involve tradeoffs. The people defending this bill refuse to acknowledge that. Many are – at this point – seemingly just making stuff up and promising the moon. And – I’ll bet all the money in my pocket on this – when they can’t deliver, it’s going to be someone else’s fault.