Congress just allowed CHIP, the program which provides low-cost health insurance to 9 million American children from low and moderate-income families, to expire, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
The Children's Health Insurance Program, created in 1997 and primarily funded by the federal government, provides routine checkups, immunizations, doctor visits, prescriptions, dental and vision care, inpatient and outpatient hospital care, lab and X-ray services and emergency services with families whose incomes fall under 200 percent of the poverty line paying no more than 5 percent of their annual income for children 18 and under.
Twenty states also offer coverage for pregnant women. The federal government last year paid about $13.6 billion for CHIP, and 10 states are scheduled to run out of funding by the end of this year.
CHIP, according to the Los Angeles Times, has helped drop the uninsured rate for children under 18 from 14 percent to less than 5 percent over the last two decades. CHIP will likely run dry in 32 more states by March 2018 if funding isn't approved.
"States are optimistic that Congress will actually act. They're not totally panicked yet," Diane Rowland, executive vice president of Kaiser Family Foundation, told ABC News. "But, they need to know very soon that addition money will be coming so they'll know how they can continue their programs."