WASHINGTON — As Democratic Congressional leaders work to merge the House and
Senate versions of major health care legislation, a big question is what they will do about
the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which now provides coverage to more than
nine million children and pregnant women and is expected to cover more than 14 million
by 2013.
The Senate bill would preserve the program, known as CHIP, and would extend federal financing through 2015, two years past its expiration date under current law. Two Democrats, Senators John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, fought hard to protect CHIP in the bill.
The House bill, by contrast, would end CHIP and redirect the millions of children either
to Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for the poor, or to new health insurance
exchanges where moderate-income Americans would be able to buy private coverage
using new federal subsidies to help offset the cost.
