Current Events > Alabama will begin shutting down their CHIP program January 1st (healthcare).

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://t.co/rvcchpJPwb

Citing Congress failure to restore federal funding of the Childrens Health Insurance Program, Alabama plans to drop 7,000 kids from coverage on New Years Day, the first step to shutting down coverage for everyone, state officials said Monday.

Those children, who are up for their yearly renewal in January, will not be allowed to continue in the program, and the state also plans to freeze enrollment at the same time. Then, unless Congress acts, Alabama would close CHIP for all 84,000 children on Feb. 1.

Alabama would become the first state to cut off childrens coverage since Congress failed to renew federal CHIP funding, which expired Oct. 1.

This will be devastating for many families, said Cathy Caldwell, director of Alabamas CHIP program, which is marketed to families under the name All Kids.

Colorado, Virginia and other states recently began sending letters to parents notifying them that officials may soon have to curtail their CHIP programs.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress say they support the program, but they have not agreed on where to get the money to pay for it. A third of states anticipate exhausting CHIP funding by the end of January, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report out earlier in December. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which oversees CHIP, has been redistributing billions in unspent funds during the past 2 months while lawmakers work on the issue to help states keep their programs running. CMS officials Monday did not respond to requests about when those dollars would run out.

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Why can't the states fund this?

Questionmarktarius posted...

Why can't the states fund this?

That money needs to be put aside to pay for politicians, can't pay for the kids too.
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Happy New Year?
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Their tax plan was more important to them than these children. The priorities in this administration are seriously fucked.
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Our government is so shitty
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Fuck the Republican Party
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You just know on some braindead message board that someone is saying that this is what Alabama gets for not electing Moore.

In reality this is on the GOP for their shit priorities and Trump for pushing this tax plan so hard so he can finally have a "win"
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fair, next

maybe those kids should get jobs and not rely on insurance handouts
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BulletWing posted...

You just know on some braindead message board that someone is saying that this is what Alabama gets for not electing Moore.

In reality this is on the GOP for their shit priorities and Trump for pushing this tax plan so hard so he can finally have a "win"

It's not about a win it's about making money, this is the kind of shit we can expect when we have the entire government stacked with self interested businessmen and lead by a guy who bragged that he wanted the government to run like his businesses which were all ran via sapping as much money as possible from someone else then fucking over more people and running off elsewhere to do it again.
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tremain07 posted...

It's not about a win it's about making money,

For Trump it's about both.
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Renault posted...

fair, next

maybe those kids should get jobs and not rely on insurance handouts

I'm hoping you're just trolling
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Why can't the states fund this?

Can't or won't?

won't

it may well be a good thing to let it die. let the voters in conservative states see exactly how their republican leaders view their children, and perhaps reconsider their bi-annual decision to re-elect an all-red legislature and executive that is dependent on federal subsidy.

such is the argument against the SALT deduction, after all.

personal note, I do generally think programs like this need to be folded into a single payer system run on the federal level.
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Republicans and Democrats in Congress say they support the program, but they have not agreed on where to get the money to pay for it.

Only on this board does this quote mean

"FUCKING REPUBLICANS!"
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Caution999 posted...

Republicans and Democrats in Congress say they support the program, but they have not agreed on where to get the money to pay for it.

Only on this board does this quote mean

"FUCKING REPUBLICANS!"

No, this could have and SHOULD have been placed as a higher priority than the tax bill. Had they worked on this (and the impending shutdown) as hard as they did on ramming through a tax bill, (with sub 25% country approval rating), they'd have gotten somewhere.

Republicans own this, Caution.
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Darkman124 posted...

it may well be a good thing to let it die. let the voters in conservative states see exactly how their republican leaders view their children, and perhaps reconsider their bi-annual decision to re-elect an all-red legislature and executive that is dependent on federal subsidy.

Let's see what NY and CA do. If "liberal" states won't fund it either, something's up.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Darkman124 posted...

it may well be a good thing to let it die. let the voters in conservative states see exactly how their republican leaders view their children, and perhaps reconsider their bi-annual decision to re-elect an all-red legislature and executive that is dependent on federal subsidy.

Let's see what NY and CA do. If "liberal" states won't fund it either, something's up.

It's not that they won't fund it, it's that they don't agree on where the funding should come from - ya'll not even reading...
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_OujiDoza_ posted...

Caution999 posted...

Republicans and Democrats in Congress say they support the program, but they have not agreed on where to get the money to pay for it.

Only on this board does this quote mean

"FUCKING REPUBLICANS!"

It's not that they won't fund it, it's that they don't agree on where the money funding should come from - ya'll not even reading...

But had they not been focused on the tax bill that most of Americans don't want, they'd have figured out how to take care of these children. But no, they just had to have their win.
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BulletWing posted...

But no, they just had to have their win.

#MAGAWINNING
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_OujiDoza_ posted...

It's not that they won't fund it, it's that they don't agree on where the funding should come from - ya'll not even reading...

Every social program should be funded at the state level, apart from a few at the county or municipal level.

Caution999 posted...

Republicans and Democrats in Congress say they support the program, but they have not agreed on where to get the money to pay for it.

Only on this board does this quote mean

"FUCKING REPUBLICANS!"

Republicans control ALL aspects of government. It's on them
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Every social program should be funded at the state level, apart from a few at the county or municipal level.

Haven't some states cut taxes so much that they can't afford much of anything?
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BulletWing posted...

Their tax plan was more important to them than these children. The priorities in this administration are seriously fucked.

in the South most of these children aren't of the majority demo so they could care less about playing politics with it and medicare.
much of these doofuses will blame the Dems anyway so they ain't going to lose too much for it.
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The Great Muta 22 posted...

Caution999 posted...

Republicans and Democrats in Congress say they support the program, but they have not agreed on where to get the money to pay for it.

Only on this board does this quote mean

"FUCKING REPUBLICANS!"

Republicans control ALL aspects of government. It's on them

It's funny, people like him and LolCoast have been crowing over their "win" and how "they" control all three branches of the government. Yet when issues arise? It's the Democrats fault.
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CableZL posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Every social program should be funded at the state level, apart from a few at the county or municipal level.

Haven't some states cut taxes so much that they can't afford much of anything?

Why should California subside Texas stealing all its businesses?

I never said it was their fault, ya goofball.
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CHIP, like Medicaid, is partially funded by both state and federal governments. States like CA and NY actually pay a higher share than Alabama does, because they are less poor, essentially

as for why they won't fund this, many of them will, but it will be by cutting services else where, probably in their Medicaid programs, because state budgets are more fiscally constrained than the federal budget and because they have had this funding for decades now
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Balrog0 posted...

because state budgets are more fiscally constrained than the federal budget

This is why we need a balanced budget amendment.

coolboy11 posted...

much of these doofuses will blame the Dems anyway so they ain't going to lose too much for it.

In the case of CHIP, I also blame Democrats.

The initial pay-fors that the GOP wanted for CHIP included a couple bad provisions, but the poison pill for Democrats was that the GOP wanted to increase cost-sharing for Medicare recipients who earn more than 500k a year

they absolutely should have done that in September, thoguh I understand why tehy didnt for political reasons

and the GOP still shoulders plenty of the blame for pushing for aca repeal and tax cuts instead of prioritizing CHIP
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Darkman124 posted...

it may well be a good thing to let it die. let the voters in conservative states see exactly how their republican leaders view their children, and perhaps reconsider their bi-annual decision to re-elect an all-red legislature and executive that is dependent on federal subsidy.

Let's see what NY and CA do. If "liberal" states won't fund it either, something's up.

They're likely waiting for the fed's funds to run out before putting in place a fix. I would expect they'd enact the necessary taxes to pay for childrens healthcare if needed.
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https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/enhanced-federal-matching-rate-chip/

Alabama, as I suspected, has 100% of their CHIP program funded by the federal government

I mean, that is only the cost of services, so the state is still paying some administrative overhead, but yeah. As you can see, the feds do not pay less than like 88% for any states program
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Balrog0 posted...

I mean, that is only the cost of services, so the state is still paying some administrative overhead, but yeah. As you can see, the feds do not pay less than like 88% for any states program

In a slightly less stupid world, Alabama would get 12% of its CHIP funding from federal, while Colorado and California get 0.
I think, anyway. Probably screwed up the math somewhere.

Questionmarktarius posted...

In a slightly less stupid world, Alabama would get 12% of its CHIP funding from federal, while Colorado and California get 0.
I think, anyway. Probably screwed up the math somewhere.

in that world, would SALT still be tax deductible from income taxes? because it'd be needed to pay for such programs, and it's one of the few true 'double taxes' out there.
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Darkman124 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

In a slightly less stupid world, Alabama would get 12% of its CHIP funding from federal, while Colorado and California get 0.
I think, anyway. Probably screwed up the math somewhere.

in that world, would SALT still be tax deductible from income taxes? because it'd be needed to pay for such programs, and it's one of the few true 'double taxes' out there.

In our slightly less stupid world, federal taxes would be deductible from state taxes, because the rates would essentially flip. 10-30% to the state, maybe 7% to federal, give or take the fact that states generally don't buy tanks and atom bombs.

Balrog0 posted...

coolboy11 posted...

much of these doofuses will blame the Dems anyway so they ain't going to lose too much for it.

In the case of CHIP, I also blame Democrats.

The initial pay-fors that the GOP wanted for CHIP included a couple bad provisions, but the poison pill for Democrats was that the GOP wanted to increase cost-sharing for Medicare recipients who earn more than 500k a year

they absolutely should have done that in September, thoguh I understand why tehy didnt for political reasons

and the GOP still shoulders plenty of the blame for pushing for aca repeal and tax cuts instead of prioritizing CHIP

good guy balrog trying to make me a little bit more educated
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