Urgent push for kid health vote

DEMOCRATS demanded Wednesday that their colleagues across the aisle reauthorize health coverage for millions of low-income kids whose insurance is at risk of running out.

Congress missed the Sept. 30 deadline to renew the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which provides inexpensive health insurance to more than 9 million children and pregnant women.

“All of these children are our children. They’re America’s children,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said at a news conference with the Democratic Women’s Working Group.

A number of states have sent out notices to CHIP recipients warning them funds will run out as early as next month.

As a Friday government shutdown deadline loomed, Congress was looking at ways to pass a stopgap measure and boot unfinished items like CHIP into next year.