There's been speculation for months that Republicans will do just about anything to punish Democrats over health care, including taking the popular Children's Health Insurance Program hostage. It's looking very real possibility, because of course they would threaten the children.
Republicans may seek to delay consideration of renewed funding for CHIP to use it as leverage to get Democrats and moderate Republicans to support their broad healthcare reform legislation, said Joe Antos, a conservative health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute. Others predict funding for federally qualified community health centers also may become part of the negotiations.
That worries children's healthcare advocates, who argue CHIP — which has enjoyed bipartisan support since its creation 20 years ago — is so important to the 8.4 million low- and moderate-income children it covers that it should be kept out of the looming partisan war over the AHCA. An estimated two million CHIP enrollees have serious chronic conditions. […]
"If you do mortal damage to Medicaid, which the AHCA does, it would spill over to CHIP, which is joined at the hip with Medicaid," said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University law professor who served until recently as chair of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC).
Republicans have shown they're willing to do just about anything when it comes to ripping away people's healthcare, even voting for a bill they haven't read that hasn't been through committee hearings and that on outdated CBO score says will cut 24 million people out of care in just a decade's time, minimum. They're quite happy to tell the states that they're giving them flexibility—the flexibility to decide whether it's children or the elderly who don't get healthcare—and pretend like they're fixing something.
These are people who have taken food out of children's mouths. Of course they'll take children's health care hostage. But they'll also pay the price.
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