Colorado’s version of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is alive for another day.
As The Denver Post reports, Colorado lawmakers approved in emergency funding to run the Children’s Health Plans Plus (CHP+) for an extra month, if necessary, amid concerns that a short-term extension of the program’s funding OK’d by Congress won’t arrive soon enough to help.
Members of Colorado’s Joint Budget Committee unanimously voted to spend $9.6 million of state funds for the program, meaning end-of-coverage letters that would have been sent out this week to more than 75,000 kids and pregnant women covered by the program won’t go out.
The program provides health coverage for children and pregnant women from low-income families that earn just enough not to qualify for Medicaid.
But the long-term future of the program, which is normally funded mostly by federal money that Congress has yet to authorize for more than a few months at a time, remains uncertain.