Our Callous Congress Forgot To Renew CHIP - 9 Million Children Could Lose Healthcare.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Still..a SIX YEAR extension would be incredibly good news. Government needs to do that for every department, and just make funding adjustments up/down, as needed. Avoid the drama we're enduring every _______weeks.

a reply to: carewemust

Then Congressional Republicans should quit playing games & pass a real long term budget. But doing that would prevent them from being able to use programs like CHIP as bargaining chips like what they're doing right now.

They could've addressed CHIP and the DACA recipients in separate legislation any time they wanted to. But they want the DACA deadline to run out without a fix a month and a half from now so that hundreds of thousands of people can get deported. Why would any of you expect the Democratic Party to go along with that? The Republican refusal to address either of those issues is precisely why Democrats are taking a stand now.

Senate Republicans have now said there will be a DACA related vote by early February (HERE). But why should we believe them? (ETA: According to this article from last December's continuing resolution debate, Republican Senator Flake claimed that McConnell had agreed to allow a DACA vote in mid-January, which clearly didn't happen.)

Trump's DACA deadline is March 5th, meaning that their permits can't be renewed from that day on unless Trump changes the deadline again. That just means we'll be bracing for an even bigger showdown throughout all of February. And seeing as congressional Republicans have proven that they have no qualms about playing politics with the healthcare for millions of American kids, I have no reason to believe they'll suddenly care about the fates of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients.

(For what it's worth, I thought a last minute budget would be agreed on.)

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Then Congressional Republicans should quit playing games & pass a real long term budget. But doing that would prevent them from being able to use programs like CHIP as bargaining chips like what they're doing right now.

Agreed they should pass a budget, but they're not using CHIP as a bargaining tool; the proposed CR included 6 years of CHIP budget. The Republicans voted overwhelmingly to stop debate so it could be voted on; the Democrats voted overwhelmingly to keep flapping their lips. If anyone is using CHIP as a bargaining tool, it's the Democrats in the Senate.

They could've addressed CHIP and the DACA recipients in separate legislation any time they wanted to. But they want the DACA deadline to run out without a fix a month and a half from now so that hundreds of thousands of people can get deported. Why would any of you expect the Democratic Party to go along with that? The Republican refusal to address either of those issues is precisely why Democrats are taking a stand now.

They plan to address DACA in a separate bill. They addressed CHIP in this bill. CHIP is a budget line item; DACA is not. Since this is (was) a Continuing Resolution on the budget, it was appropriate to address CHIP but not DACA.

Senate Republicans have now said there will be a DACA related vote by early February (HERE). But why should we believe them?

There is your disconnect: believe anyone with a 'D' next to their name and refuse to believe anyone with an 'R' next to their name. As long as people maintain that kind of unrealistic standard, nothing will ever get accomplished.

Trump's DACA deadline is March 5th, meaning that their permits can't be renewed from that day on unless Trump changes the deadline again.

Exactly the point. It is standard operating procedure for the Senate to wait until the last minute, so they are ahead of the game by even talking about DACA at this point. There's no rush yet. There was a rush on CHIP... and the Democrats, not the Republicans, forced it to expire over an issue that was not budget-related, that was already being discussed for another bill, had no bill or resolution available to attach, and was not about to expire.

But their permits will now be forced to be renewed, because of an injunction on Trump's Executive Order. And that's a whole 'nother issue in itself (see below). At least until DACA reaches the Supreme Court. Trump may well not have the power to extend DACA after his deadline... in fact, it is possible DACA will now expire before his deadline. I put all the details in another thread; you can read it here.

In short, by deciding to get a liberal judge to file an injunction, the case will now hit the Supreme Court, as fast as the DOJ can get it there. The Supreme Court will likely strike down DACA as illegal, since it is based on Executive override (as opposed to Executive clarification) of Legislative power. Once that happens, DACA is dead and Trump will be in violation of Federal law if he doesn't instruct ICE to begin immediate deportation of DACA recipients... who, thanks to DACA itself, are quite easily located.

Trump saw this coming and tried to get a head start on fixing the DACA issue by announcing discontinuation 6 months early and asking Congress to do their job and codify it.

Congress can fix this issue by codifying DACA, but I honestly doubt that will happen. After all, if the health care of 9 million (I have heard) American children isn't worth shutting their pie hole long enough to take a vote, what makes anyone think the Democrats will shut up long enough to vote on DACA codification?

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Applaud

I cant see a way out of the current predicament for the DNC

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

And I just saw that the IRS is furloughing employees... right before tax time! That's a lot of voters that may be very upset that the Schumer Shutdown interrupted their refund...

If there's a way out of this for the DNC, I certainly don't see it either...

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Agreed they should pass a budget, but they're not using CHIP as a bargaining tool; the proposed CR included 6 years of CHIP budget. The Republicans voted overwhelmingly to stop debate so it could be voted on; the Democrats voted overwhelmingly to keep flapping their lips. If anyone is using CHIP as a bargaining tool, it's the Democrats in the Senate.

I've already pointed out in this very thread that there was bipartisan support to fully extend CHIP back in September. Congressional Republicans simply refused to put it up for a vote. They could've put it up for a vote in September, October, November, or December and it would've passed on its own. Hell, they could've put it up for a separate vote this month and it would pass with bipartisan support.

Democrats can't bring a single bill to the floor for a vote; only the leaders of the chambers of Congress can do that. And the leaders of both chambers of Congress are Republicans. Republicans deliberately linked the CHIP program to this specific continuing resolution because they wanted to pressure Democrats into accepting the continuing resolution without including a DACA fix in it.

And note that this same debate happened in early Dec before a continuing resolution was passed w/bipartisan votes on Dec 7th. The same debate happened before the next continuing resolution was passed on Dec 22nd. Democrats even flirted with withholding votes then unless there was long term CHIP and DACA legislation included in it, but they folded at the last minute. I even posted a link in my last post showing that one of the Senate Republicans who supports a DACA fix believed that McConnell had agreed to a DACA vote by mid-January, which clearly didn't happen.

a reply to: TheRedneck

There was a rush on CHIP... and the Democrats, not the Republicans, forced it to expire over an issue that was not budget-related, that was already being discussed for another bill, had no bill or resolution available to attach, and was not about to expire.

That's a straight up lie and you know it. Here's an article from September 13th that shows that there was bipartisan support to get CHIP passed before it expired.

Senate Republican and Democratic bargainers reached agreement late Tuesday to extend financing for the children's health insurance program for five years, a pact that if approved would avert an end-of-month cash crunch for the popular program.

In a concession to Republicans, the agreement would phase out extra federal funds that have gone to states for the program since the additional money was mandated as part of President Barack Obama's 2010 health care law.

Money for the federal-state program is due to expire at the end of September. The program provides health coverage to around 8 million low-income children and pregnant women.

It was initially unclear how the agreement would fare in the Senate and the House.

But the two negotiators — Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and that panel's top Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon — work closely with party leaders. In addition, having embarrassingly failed in this year's attempt to repeal Obama's health care statute, Republicans and President Donald Trump are eager for an accomplishment and would be unlikely to stymie the continuation of such a widely supported initiative.

It was also unclear if the pact would move quickly and by itself through Congress, or become a vehicle for other, less widely backed legislation.

Senate reaches deal on extending children's health insurance program

But like I keep saying, your Republican leadership in both chambers of Congress simply refused to put it up for a vote. It's funny yet disgraceful how the party that supposedly believes in responsibility never takes responsibility for its own actions.

ETA: When Democrats are in power, anything wrong is the Democrats' fault. When both parties are splitting power, anything wrong is the Democrats' fault. And when Republicans have all of the power including "the House, the Senate, the White House, and 82% of elected seats in the country" like the OP of this very thread admitted (HERE), you guys still blame the Democrats if something goes wrong. Pathetic.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

That's a straight up lie and you know it. Here's an article from September 13th...

Need a calendar?

It's no lie that CHIP funding was extended to 6 years as a concession to the Democrats this time around. That, sir, is called a fact.

But like I keep saying, your Republican leadership in both chambers of Congress simply refused to put it up for a vote.

You apparently forgot to read this little part:

September 13, 2017, 7:10 AM

You seem to have missed a few months' time. I hope it wasn't an alien abduction. Either that or you just can't get past the idea that R=bad and D=good, and are frantically searching for anything that happened since the beginning of time to keep face.

When Democrats are in power, anything wrong is the Democrats' fault. When both parties are splitting power, anything wrong is the Democrats' fault. And when Republicans have all of the power including "the House, the Senate, the White House, and 82% of elected seats in the country" like the OP of this very thread admitted [...], you guys still blame the Democrats if something goes wrong.

How about we try something completely crazy? Like assigning blame for actions taken? The Democrats refused to allow a vote. That was on CSPAN. The whole country was able to see it.

You're forgetting that you are not debating a Republican; I'm an American.

TheRedneck

January 22, 2018

Well, it looks like we can put this thread in the "HAPPY ENDING" category! Earlier today, Congress funded the Children's Health Insurance Program for SIX (yes..6!) years.

Months-long uncertainty over the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) ended Monday after Congress passed a six-year reauthorization of the program.

CHIP expired Sept. 30, 2017, but states have been using unused money from last year to keep their programs going.

Reauthorization of the program that covers 9 million low-income children has passed with little controversy in past years, but this time around, Democrats and Republicans could not agree on how to pay for it.

While House Republicans passed a CHIP funding bill in November, Democrats voted against it and the Senate ignored it.

The two parties squabbled over the program in the past week, with Republicans attaching CHIP to a short-term spending bill to get Democratic support.

However, that backfired when the bill couldn't get enough votes in the Senate, resulting in a three-day government shutdown.

SOURCE: thehill.com...

I didn't know that Democrats voted against funding the Childrens Health Insurance Program this past November. That's totally uncharacteristic of Democrats.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

DACA is not budgetary. It had no place in a budget bill. CHIP, on the other hand, requires funding. It has a place on a budget bill.

I fail to see wrong doing based on that, as its simply logical