If Congress does not take action soon, nearly 630,000 children may lose their health care. Why? A funding shortfall in a quirky health care program called the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
SCHIP was created in 1997 to shore up Medicaid. It covers children whose families have incomes that exceed Medicaid eligibility levels, but are still struggling to get by. This design has been remarkably successful- the share of low-income children who are uninsured has fallen by one fourth since 1997, despite a decline in employer-provided benefits.
Hundreds of thousands of enrolled children may get cut off the program now, though, for two reasons: