The State of Texas has come through at the 11th hour with funding for one more month of the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Lawmakers came through with the money, in order to avoid having to send out Christmas notifications to nearly half a million children that they would be losing their health care.
As The Houston Chronicle reports, the program is now funded through the end of February, though legislators will need to find another funding answer going forward if they want to keep the program alive.
Nationwide, the CHIP program provides medical care to over 9 million kids. Republicans in the U.S. Congress pulled the plug on the program’s funding back in September. One-third of states are expecting to run out of funding before the end of January, though Congress has yet to act to fix the program.