Are Rethugs About To Chop CHIP?

While Rethuglican focus has shifted from robbing 20 million plus Americans out of their health care to shoveling tax breaks to their wealthy individual and corporate contributors, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is in danger of collapsing. On September 30, funding for the program that covers 9 million American children will expire, forcing states to scramble to fund the program into the new fiscal year without assurance of FY 2018 funds. States like Arizona, Minnesota, and North Carolina will run out of funds by December.  Other states are developing contingency plans to shut the program down if Congressional Rethugs don't act to reauthorize funding.

The Rethuglicans in Congress spent so much of their time and energy in trying to kill the Affordable Care Act that time ran out to reauthorize CHIP. There are also worries among Dems that CHIP will become a hostage to new attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, potentially with Rethugs amending any CHIP reauthorization to include provisions undermining the ACA. The Rethugs' political malice could delay or doom funding for the program well into the fiscal year. The health and lives of 9 million children (and pregnant women) are at stake, not that Congressional Rethugs actually give a damn.