Nearly nine million children across the country receive health care services through the Children’s Health Insurance Program, enacted with bipartisan congressional support in 1997 to provide health care coverage for children from eligible families with low and moderate incomes. In our four states — Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada and Oregon — more than 300,000 children rely on the program, known as CHIP. But any day now, if Congress doesn’t act, these kids could lose the health care they depend on.



Since the program went into effect, the percentage of children who are uninsured has dropped from 15 percent to 5.3 percent. Children who would otherwise be uninsured can now visit doctors for the regular checkups all kids should have and get the treatment they need when they’re sick or hurt, whether they’re suffering from a sore throat, a broken bone or a life-threatening illness. CHIP doesn’t just provide insurance coverage for children — it indirectly provides financial stability for many working families who depend on the program to cover their children’s health care. Many of them would otherwise be financially devastated by their kids’ hospital bills.

Now, the program is on the brink of elimination. As Congress debated health care proposals, federal funding for CHIP was allowed to expire in late September. When CHIP became law two decades ago, it was a bipartisan success story. And it will take bipartisan action in the coming weeks to avoid a congressional failure that will hurt many of the country’s children.

Governors like us are horrified by this possibility, because we know how much the people who live in our states and depend on CHIP will suffer if Congress fails to act. Failure to reauthorize CHIP would harm children and families almost immediately. According to the federal Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, nearly every state will exhaust its federal CHIP allotments early in 2018. Several will exhaust them even sooner. When our money runs out, our states will face crippling cuts to our children’s health care coverage.