LancasterOnline Editorial Board

People don’t agree on much these days. But we’ll wager that most of us agree on this: Children ought to have health insurance. And community health centers that serve low-income families ought to be funded. Which is why it came as a surprise to many that federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program — and that for community health centers and other safety-net programs — were allowed by Congress to quietly lapse over the weekend.

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As Joan Benso, president and CEO of the nonprofit Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, told LNP’s Stauffer, the annual federal share of CHIP funding in the commonwealth is more than $385 million. The state share is 10 percent of the program’s funding, and so money coming from the state would be quickly exhausted. Also consider the fact that the state budget still is not resolved.

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