While lawmakers spent much of the year discussing sweeping changes to our healthcare system, they missed a crucial opportunity for bipartisan success on the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Millions of children rely on CHIP, but Congress has let funding for the program expire.

While it’s not too late for Congress to extend funding, time is running out. The Senate and House must act swiftly on funding for CHIP that has bipartisan support so that Colorado and many of its middle- and low-income families can breathe a sigh of relief.

CHIP provides quality health coverage for kids in families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private insurance. Why is it critical that Congress move as quickly as possible to extend funding for CHIP?

With federal funding having expired a month ago, healthcare hangs in the balance for nearly 9 million children nationwide. In Colorado, about 90,000 children and pregnant women access care through CHIP. CHIP has helped bring down Colorado’s uninsured rate for kids from about 8 percent in 2009 to almost 3 percent in 2015. It’s an efficient program, and at a time when Congress is focusing on cost, covering children is a bargain that will pay dividends for generations to come. Healthy children grow up to become healthy adults, and CHIP helps ensure Colorado kids can reach their full potential.

Most of Colorado’s representatives in Congress have said they support renewing funds for CHIP. In this case, however, passive support for the program has not gotten the job done. Colorado’s elected officials in Washington, D.C., must push CHIP to the top of the agenda in Congress, or kids in our state risk losing coverage early in the new year.

The lack of urgency at the federal level to get this done is alarming to me, to the patients we care for every day at Children’s Hospital Colorado, and to communities across the state.

The uncertainty around CHIP funding means Colorado may be forced to start sending notices to families as early as November, letting them know their kids’ coverage could be ending if Congress doesn’t act. Congress must rush to extend funding for the program, to prevent unnecessary anxiety and families scrambling to find new sources of coverage over the holidays.

This is a question weighing heavily on every family with CHIP coverage, but it matters for our state budget, too, which funds K-12 education, roads, and more. Colorado has assumed in its budgeting process that federal funding would continue at the same level, but with no guarantee that CHIP funding will be extended, Colorado is expected to run out of funding in early 2018. This means our state may have no choice but to end the program altogether.

Congress should act now on a bipartisan CHIP bill. Children’s Hospital Colorado is an active member of the 2017 Colorado CHIP Coalition, working with over 75 partners across the state to advocate for an immediate 5-year extension of CHIP funding, so it can continue protecting kids and pregnant women across Colorado. Families in Colorado and across the country rely on this program. We can’t let them down.

Jena Hausmann is president and CEO of Children’s Hospital Colorado.

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