The Press-Enterprise
By: Jeff Horseman
Sofia Cortez has had her share of bad breaks in the past seven months. The energetic 6-year-old from Riverside broke her elbow while bouncing on a trampoline. Then came a broken pinky finger at day care. The federal Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, paid for Sofia’s medical care. “Thank God we had (CHIP),” said Sofia’s mother, Raquel Cortez, a 27-year-old single mom who works as an office assistant and attends Riverside City College. “It allows me to make ends meet during hard times.”
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I believe Sen. Hatch wants to get CHIP done, but it clearly hasn’t risen to the top of the priority list,” Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, told the news analysis website Vox. “What bears pointing out here is that this is a terrible way for the federal government to run a program!” she said. “States have been left holding the bag and are wasting time and money. Families are being subjected to needless anxiety after a long year of anxiety about health care being taken away.”
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