GOP accuses Dems of playing politics with children’s health care

Republicans are piling the pressure on Democrats to vote for a short-term stopgap bill to keep the government open by attaching a six-year reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Democrats who vote against the bill are essentially denying health care to poor children, Republicans argue. 

{mosads}”There’s no good reason to punish children today by keeping Congress from passing CHIP reauthorization,” House GOP conference chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) at a press conference late Wednesday afternoon. 

Republicans are attaching funding for the program to the stopgap bill as a sweetener to entice Democratic support.

In the House, however, Democrats are adamantly opposed to any spending bill that does not include protections for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

House GOP leaders are hoping to find enough Republican votes to pass the bill in the House. In the Senate, Republicans are betting that enough vulnerable Democrats will end up supporting the bill, especially if it funds CHIP. 

“It shouldn’t require this kind of fight to keep the government open and take care of children,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (Ore.). 

Democrats voted against CHIP reauthorization in the House last year because they couldn’t reach an agreement with Republicans on how to pay for it. 

But a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office released last week revealed it would cost nothing to renew CHIP because of the GOP’s repeal of ObamaCare’s individual insurance mandate. 

“They now have a third or fourth opportunity here to support the Children’s Health Insurance Program for our states, and this one has no offsets,” Walden said. “What’s their argument? That we need to shut down the government and not fund children’s health insurance? That’s a pretty bad argument and one I’ll take to the ballot box if necessary.”