On Monday, December 11, 2017, in a 43-6 vote, the PA Senate passed a bill to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through 2019. The CHIP program provides health insurance to children in financially strapped families whose income is too high to qualify for standard Medicaid programs. The bill now goes to Governor Wolf for his signature.

Re-authorization became controversial and political rankling has occurred since Governor Wolf moved to expand the program to include transgender services, which was left unchanged in the final bill.

Federal funding covers approximately 90 percent of the $450 million cost of Pennsylvania’s CHIP program and that funding is at risk without Congress approving reauthorization on the national level.