As expected, Congress lets kids’ healthcare program expire

At the tail end of September, reports surfaced that the Republican-controlled Congress was on the verge of letting 9 million children go without healthcare by letting their insurance program expire after their failed efforts to ram through Obamacare repeal bills had left them with little time to focus on other matters. This, despite the fact that a bipartisan agreement was already on the table. They just needed to vote on it.

They couldn’t even be arsed to do that.

Congress missed a deadline to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) over the weekend, leaving federal funding to expire at the end of the month, according to ABC News.

Neither the House nor the Senate took up a vote to reauthorize the program, which helps states provide inexpensive health insurance to children in lower-income families.

Congress was on track to miss the deadline earlier this week, and though the Senate released a bipartisan, five-year bill to reauthorize the program, a vote wasn’t scheduled.

Because of the way the program allotted out the funds, states won’t immediately run out of money, but it will happen over the next few months. Then, nine million children will be freshly without healthcare … though given that they’re primarily from low-income households, you can imagine the number of damns Republicans don’t give.