Opinion: Taking health care from kids

In rushing to cut taxes, Republican leaders have let more important issues slide. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, December 21, 2017 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist At the White House yesterday, Republicans celebrated their passage of a big tax cut. Somehow, though, they still haven’t found the time or the money to protect health insurance for millions of low-income children. In September, Congress allowed funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (known as CHIP) to expire. By the end of next month, [25 states are likely to run out of their remaining CHIP money]( according to a new report by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. That could put health coverage for 1.9 million children at risk. Eventually, if CHIP isn’t extended, almost nine million children — or about one out of every eight children in America — could lose coverage. CHIP isn’t supposed to be controversial. It enjoys bipartisan support, at least rhetorically. Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who helped create the program in the 1990s, said yesterday that [Congress should remain in session until its funding is restored](. But the program has become a casualty of the failure by Congress to fund the federal government for next year. Many conservatives won’t agree to do so without implementing budget cuts. Congress seems likely to push an overall funding bill into January, creating uncertainty and anxiety for many families. Congress’s decision to put tax cuts ahead of health care, [writes The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell]( “has left millions of children, including some in the middle of lifesaving care such as cancer treatment, in limbo.” She adds: “When so many dire priorities abound, it’s hard to fathom how tax cuts got to the front of the queue.” As The Times’s Robert Pear reported this week, [CHIP has become a bargaining chip]( a noncontroversial measure that Republicans can use to force Democrats to vote for other provisions they might otherwise oppose. “In the meantime,” [writes]( Vox’s Dylan Scott, “we are 11 days away from a state like Alabama freezing enrollment and Congress’s inaction having a real effect on some number of American children’s ability to access health care.” As [V. Ram Krishnamoorthi and Philip Verhoef, both doctors at the University of Chicago, put it in Crain’s Chicago Business]( “Our fear is that, if legislators continue to politicize CHIP funding, they will destabilize the entire program. Without a stable foundation of federal money, states are unable to budget for, much less cover, the current needs of their most vulnerable people.” Congressional leaders keep talking as if they regret the uncertainty over CHIP. But they’re the only ones who can end it. They should cut back on the platitudes and make sure children get to keep their health insurance. Trump-friendly media on tax cuts. Breitbart covered the passage of the G.O.P. tax plan in glowing terms. It played up [members’ praise for the president’s leadership]( as well as early reports that [some companies plan to offer employee bonusesÂ]( of the bill. But the coverage also included some obvious spin. In a Wednesday post, Breitbart’s John Carney [tried to explain the bill’s consistent unpopularity]( in public-opinion polls. He blamed Americans’ negative perception of the bill partly on “journalists and politically motivated opponents of tax cuts who have spread falsehoods about the tax bill.” He also tried to discredit the Tax Policy Center, which did several objective analyses of the bill that were consistent with other independent analysis of the bill. “Americans are not really opposed to the Republican tax bill,” Carney wrote. “They are opposed to an imaginary bill that hikes taxes on many people and lowers taxes for a very small segment of American households. That is just about the photographic negative of the actual tax bill.” Carney is correct that most households initially receive a tax cut from the bill. But he’s also engaging in the [common diversionary tactics of the bill’s supporters.]( They wave away the temporary nature of the middle-class tax cuts, essentially arguing that people should ignore Congress’s decision to let those cuts disappear in the bill’s final years. And the bill’s supporters pretend that its deficit increases bill won’t eventually lead to budget cuts that hurt the middle class, as [Bryce Covert explains in The Times](. The American public gets it. People saw the rushed, secretive way that Congress passed the bill. They understand that this bill is a bad deal for most families. The full Opinion report from The Times follows Editorial [Congress Refuses to Do Right by Children’s Health Care]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The Children’s Health Insurance Program is in limbo while Republicans rejoice at a tax cut of more than $1 trillion for the rich. Op-Ed Columnist [The Great American Tax Heist]( By CHARLES M. 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ADVERTISEMENT Letters [The Rushed Passage of a Tax Bill]( Readers recall Hillary Clinton’s prediction on tax cuts and discuss the unpopularity of the bill and the G.O.P.’s willingness to pass it nonetheless. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. FOLLOW OPINION [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytopinion]( [Pinterest] [Pinterest]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »](  | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2017 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018