The CHIP reauthorization is still waiting for a final resolution. Due to the most recent CBO analysis (score) a CHIP reauthorization would be significantly less and could pay for itself and perhaps some additional programs. Because of what Congress has done to the ACA, cutting families off from CHIP would not be as cheap. That is because some of those families would be forced into the ACA exchanges. To extend CHIP now for five years would cost $800 million, significantly less since the tax package repealed the individual mandate. If Congress were to extend it beyond five years savings are incurred. The cost of an extension of CHIP to ten years, instead of the current five-year proposal is reduced by $7.5 billion.
In the post individual mandate-repeal world, CBO stated,
“The extension [of CHIP] would increase the deficit in each year between 2018 and 2020 and reduce the deficit each year thereafter. The change from annual increases in the deficit to decreases [in deficits] over the 2021-2027 period primarily occurs because the federal matching rate for CHIP would decline relative to its level in prior years—from an average of 93 percent in 2019 to 81.5 percent in 2020 and 70 percent in 2021 and subsequent years—lowering the federal costs of coverage through CHIP as states become responsible for more of the program’s costs.”
CHIP is tied together with so many other programs including the home visiting or Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV), all programs was looking for possible attachment to a moving legislative package. One other possibility is that these extensions could be passed separately in another short-term CR.
