House Democrats showed little willingness to support a stopgap measure as they push for other priorities, including securing a deal to shield from deportation young undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. Such “Dreamers” will have to wait until at least January for action on that issue.

“All of us as members of Congress, we’re eager to return to our families as soon as possible back across America,” said Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas. “But our Dreamers are left with fear and uncertainty about returning to their families and about their future.”

Democrats complained that Congress was lurching from one crisis to the next, with a stack of big issues still unresolved, including a long-term spending deal.

“We shouldn’t be funding the government week to week, month to month, but yet my Republican friends have ended up doing just that,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “They can’t seem to get their act together.”

The stopgap bill provides money for CHIP and community health centers through March. And it directs the secretary of health and human services to distribute leftover CHIP funds to states with the most urgent financial problems so they do not have to shut down the program.

But the $2.85 billion provided for CHIP is far less than the five years of funds that congressional leaders had promised, and it is unclear whether those funds will be adequate. Some states had already begun to inform parents that their children could lose coverage early next year if Congress did not act. The bill does not provide the certainty that state officials had been seeking.

“I do not think this is anywhere close to enough money,” said Bruce Lesley, the president of First Focus, a child advocacy group. “For a $12 billion to $14 billion program, this provides less than $3 billion for what is effectively six months” — the first half of the 2018 fiscal year, which began in October.