{"id":102331,"date":"2017-12-21T20:40:11","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T03:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gov-hickenlooper-seeks-emergency-funding-for-child-health-care\/"},"modified":"2017-12-21T20:40:11","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T03:40:11","slug":"gov-hickenlooper-seeks-emergency-funding-for-child-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gov-hickenlooper-seeks-emergency-funding-for-child-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Hickenlooper seeks emergency funding for child health care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The state may fund the Children\u2019s Health Plan Plus through February. Congress allowed funding for the program to expire on Sept. 30.<\/span>Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gov. John Hickenlooper, in an effort to keep health insurance going for low-income children and pregnant women, has asked for emergency funds for the Children\u2019s Health Plan Plus program (CHP+).<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper sent his request Tuesday to the General Assembly\u2019s Joint Budget Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cVulnerable children and pregnant women are being used as bargaining chips,\u201d Hickenlooper said in a statement. \u201cThis request is not a cure. It\u2019s a one-time only Band-Aid as we wait for Congress to do what\u2019s right and secure CHIP funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

CHP+ is a Colorado program that provides medical and dental care for low-income children and pregnant women whose income is too high to qualify for Medicaid but cannot otherwise afford private health insurance.<\/p>\n

Federal funding for the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) ran out on Sept. 30. The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing has been able to cover the CHP+ program with existing funds. But that money runs out on Jan. 31.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper\u2019s request asks the Joint Budget Committee to tap the CHP+ Trust Fund to support the program through February. That would allow extra time for Congress to act and reauthorize the funding or for the General Assembly to decide whether and how to continue to cover individuals currently enrolled in CHP+, the governor\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

The cost to extend the CHP+ plus program<\/a> through the end of February is $9.6 million. The program serves approximately 73,700 children and about 800 pregnant women annually.<\/p>\n

The JBC can make spending decisions when the legislature is not in session for extraordinary items at the request of the Executive Branch.<\/p>\n

Kelly Causey, president and CEO of the Colorado Children\u2019s Campaign, said his 75-member CHIP Coalition applauds the governor for seeking the supplemental funding. This emergency request allows the state to delay sending termination notices to tens of thousands of Colorado families during the holidays, Causey said in a statement. \u201cWhile we realize that Colorado does not have sufficient state funds to continue the CHP+ program in perpetuity, we urge the Joint Budget Committee to immediately consider and approve this short-term fix.\u201d The CHIP Coalition sent a letter to Colorado\u2019s congressional delegation Tuesday, asking it to support an extension of funding for the health plan through 2022.<\/p>\n

Congress is negotiating a stop-gap funding measure to keep the federal government operating after Dec. 22, and lawmakers in both parties are urging a CHIP extension in that spending resolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congress let federal funding run out Sept. 30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[747,21,13,1347,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-102331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-children","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-government-health-care","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102331"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=102331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}