Vox

By: Dylan Scott

Congress is preparing to go home for the holidays having delivered a historic tax cut for corporations — and having done only the absolute minimum to stave off disaster for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The government spending bill released on Thursday, which Republican leadership hopes to pass in a matter of hours, would provide $2.8 billion that is supposed to fund the program through March.

…

“It’s better than nothing, but the program will sputter along without the certainty it needs for states to feel confident enough to do outreach and put out the welcome mat for children,” Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, told me Thursday morning. She added of the preferred five-year extension: “Why not do that instead and do right by kids for the holidays? It is troubling that they can’t get this done when they have had bipartisan agreement on the policy for months now.”

…

Read more here.