On Tuesday, health care activists and Democrats celebrated the defeat of Graham-Cassidy, the GOP’s third attempt to repeal Obamacare since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Thanks to reams of bad press and highly visible protests in the Capitol led by groups like ADAPT, Maine’s Susan Collins on Monday became the third Republican senator to oppose the bill, effectively making it dead on arrival. The following day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to shelve the bill without putting it to a vote.

But the last-ditch repeal effort, meant to be passed by a September 30 deadline, may have another cost: the health insurance of nearly nine million children. What’s more frustrating still is that there is no reason for it to have gotten to this point, the latest evidence that the GOP has become incapable of governing responsibly.

Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy unveiled their health care repeal bill five days before Senators Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden introduced their bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which would extend the program for five more years. CHIP is set to expire on September 30.

Should CHIP expire, most states have enough funding to maintain the program for a few months. But ten states would run out of funding by the end of the year and Minnesota would run out by the end of October. According to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “When their federal funding runs out, states with separate CHIP programs (rather than CHIP-funded Medicaid expansions for children) may be forced to impose enrollment caps or freezes, or shut their programs entirely.”





Furthermore, there would be numerous adverse consequences that would begin immediately. States would have to start shifting costs to cover administrative tasks necessary for ending the program, such as sending parents notices in the mail. And the lack of assurance that the program will exist in the future makes it impossible for states to budget and plan. Basically, states would have to focus on a variety of things completely unrelated to the program’s intent of expanding access to and improving children’s health care.