End health care chaos

PRESIDENT Trump and Republicans in Congress have brought chaos to the American health care system by trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act and failing to reauthorise the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which, with bipartisan support for the past 20 years, has provided care for millions of children.

Over the next few weeks they can choose to set things right or to destroy them.

Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray on Tuesday announced a bipartisan deal that could help stabilise the A.C.A.’s insurance markets and undo some of the damage Mr Trump has done through administrative actions. In an ideal world, Congress would quickly pass that bill, which includes several Republican priorities, and, at the same time, reauthorise CHIP, which now covers nearly nine million children.

But with Mr Trump in the White House and feckless Republicans leading Congress, it’s possible that none of this will get done, health care costs will be driven up and millions of children will be left without health insurance.

Of course, these same lawmakers who are so tight-fisted with children’s medical care want to slash taxes on wealthy families with no effort to offset that loss of revenue.

State governments, which run CHIP, are continuing to cover children with money left over from earlier appropriations and with emergency infusions from the federal government. But 11 states are expected to run out of federal funds by the end of December, and 20 states and the District of Columbia will get to that point in the first three months of next year.

CHIP, created in 1997 to cover lower-income families who could not get Medicaid, helped lower the uninsured rate for children to 5 percent from 14 percent. So far, neither Mr Trump nor Republican leaders have taken these vital matters seriously.