Believe it or not, there was another atrocity in our politics over the weekend. This atrocity can kill at a respectable remove from the perpetrators. From the LA Times:

Their fears turned out to be true. Funding for CHIP runs out on Saturday, and no vote on reestablishing the program’s $15-billion appropriation is expected for at least a week, probably longer. That’s the case even though CHIP is one of the few federal programs that has enjoyed unalloyed bipartisan support since its inception in 1997. The consequences will be dire in many states, which will have to curtail or even shut down their children’s health programs until funding is restored. Hanging in the balance is care for 9 million children and pregnant women in low-income households.

Christamighty, these gossoons spent so much time trying to strip health care from 32 million Americans that they ran out the clock on health care for nine million kids. This is terrible if it represents simple legislative incompetence, but it’s even worse if—as I suspect—it was deliberate.

Agreement on a bill had been reached in mid-September by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “Momentum was building,” says Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, a children’s advocacy group in Washington. Then came Cassidy-Graham, and “we couldn’t even get a meeting,” Lesley says. “No one was even taking our calls.” The impact of delay varies by state, because states are able to apply unspent CHIP money in any fiscal year to the next year. But even those with money in their coffers can’t escape the consequences of Congress’ inaction. Because they can’t merely assume that Congress will eventually get around to reauthorizing the funding, they have to start planning to shut down their programs now, or reallocate funding from other social programs. According to Medicaid officials, who manage CHIP from the federal end, California, Arizona, Minnesota and North Carolina will run out of CHIP funding by December or early in January. Half the states won’t make it beyond the first three months of 2018. Some will run out of money next week.

Lovely.

Don’t worry, though. The House of Representatives is on the case. In a tweet earlier Monday morning, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times pointed us to this statement from a “House GOP aide” that claims that the funding won’t run out until December.

This atrocity can kill at a respectable remove from the perpetrators.

First of all, contra this House GOP Aide, Minnesota officials have pointed out to their congressional delegation that their state’s money ran out this past weekend. Second, this is not a scenario that should give anyone much hope. If the thinking within the Republican congressional majority is that they have another two months leeway with this program, then I don’t think it unreasonable to assume that they will use it as a bargaining…er…chip in the upcoming slanging match over the budget, thus making the health coverage for nine million kids a hostage to, say, the elimination of the estate tax. Are they above doing this? Are you kidding me?

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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