Kasich, other governors urge help
WASHINGTON — Ohio Gov. John Kasich joined 11 other governors from both parties on Tuesday to plead with Congress to keep health coverage for nearly 220,000 Ohio children and millions more kids across the country.
With Congress facing an end-of-the-year deadline to extend the 20-year-old Children’s Health Insurance Program, the governors urged Senate and House leaders to forget their differences and pass a bill “as quickly as possible.”
In a letter to congressional leaders, Kasich and the other governors warned that failure to
extend the program would jeopardize “access to essential health services like well-child exams, asthma medicine and hospitalizations.”
“Resources are nearly exhausted and some states already have begun to inform families that their children’s coverage may end on January 31,” the governors wrote.
The program — called CHIP — was established in 1997 with a bipartisan agreement between then-President Bill Clinton and Republican lawmakers, including Kasich, a congressman from Ohio at the time.
It is not clear whether the governors’ letter will intensify pressure on Congress to reauthorize the program. But Jennifer Donohue, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, said the Democrat “applauded” Kasich “and agrees with him.”
A five-year extension of CHIP would cost $9 billion. If Congress fails to act, Ohio could continue the program, but receive far fewer federal dollars to finance it.
Congressional Republicans have
suggested that they will fund the program when they pass a government spending bill this month.
The House approved a five-year extension last month. But to pay for the cost, House Republicans demanded a $10.5 billion cut from a federal program that would help finance improvements in the public health system. The program was created in 2010 through the health-care law known as Obamacare.
With the backing of Brown and Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the Senate Finance Committee approved its version earlier this fall that would guarantee that children keep their coverage through 2019. But the Senate bill does not cut other programs to pay for it, which puts it at odds with the House bill.
Among the governors signing the letter were Democrats John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Terry McAuliffe of Virginia and Mark Dayton of Minnesota, as well as Republicans Charles Baker of Massachusetts and Brian Sandoval of Nevada.