Congress has known since April 2015 that funds for the popular children’s insurance program — created and sustained for two decades with bipartisan support — would expire this year at the end of September. The Senate Finance Committee approved a five-year extension of funding for the program in early October, but did not specify how to pay for it — and Republicans insist that it must be paid for.

The House passed a bill to provide five years of funds in early November, but those funds would come from public health programs set up under the Affordable Care Act and an increase in premiums for affluent Medicare beneficiaries, provisions that are unacceptable to most Democrats. House Republicans plan to send those same provisions to the Senate again this week as part of a stopgap spending bill, knowing they will be killed.

Meantime, the Alabama Department of Public Health posted a notice on its website this week saying that it would freeze enrollment in the Children’s Health Insurance Program on Jan. 1 and would not renew any coverage after that date.

“If Congress does not act soon, coverage for children now enrolled in CHIP will end on Feb. 1,” Cathy Caldwell, the director of the Alabama program, said Tuesday in an interview.

Colorado and Connecticut, among other states, have sent letters informing families that their children may soon lose CHIP coverage.