88,000 Mississippi children to lose health insurance in March

U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

U.S. Congress allowed funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program to expire on Saturday, leaving 88,000 Mississippi children uninsured by next March. Nationally, 9 million children are now projected to lose their health insurance in fiscal year 2018.

Funding for the program, which was last reauthorized in 2015, was due to be renewed by Sept. 30. When that date passed without action from either the Senate or the House, the funding expired.

Several Democrats in Congress were quick to blame the lapse on Republican colleagues, whom they said had gotten sidetracked by the now-stalled Graham-Cassidy bill, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act.

“No child in America should be without health insurance. Congress should extend #CHIP funding immediately. We can’t waste another week,” Rep. Eric Swalwel, D-Calif., said on Twitter Sunday. As of Sunday, none of Mississippi’s elected officials have released public statements on the funding.

The Children’s Health Insurance Program, which was created in 1997 and passed with bipartisan support, provides inexpensive health insurance to low income children and pregnant women whose income levels make them ineligible for Medicaid. In Mississippi, this means people in households earning up to 209% of federal poverty level.

In the 20 years since the program was implemented, the percentage of uninsured children in the United States has dropped from 14 percent to just under five percent. But that trend is likely to reverse quickly unless Congress reauthorizes funding.

Like Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program is paid for by a combination of federal and state funds. But in 10 states the federal government covers 100 percent of the funding for the program. Mississippi is one of those states, and funding for fiscal year 2018 was projected to be $282 million.

Mississippi currently has $98.5 million remaining in funds from fiscal year 2017. As a result, funding is not expected to fully run out until March 2018. But three states and the District of Columbia will run out of funds and have to shut down their programs by December 2017.

Congress also missed a deadline Saturday to approve $1.5 billion in funding for community health centers. Without the new money, the Department of Health and Human Services estimates 2,800 health center sites would close and eliminate more than 50,000 jobs and access to care for about 9 million patients.

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