Bill would allow kids to keep health coverage at least through 2019

Bipartisan measure has support from Ohio Sens. Brown and Portman.

Ohio would not face any federal financial cutbacks for federal children’s health insurance during the next two years if Congress approves a bipartisan compromise bill unveiled Monday.

The $9 billion measure, which would re-authorize for five years the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), would allow at least 210,000 low-income children in Ohio to keep their coverage through the end of 2019.

If the Senate and House approve the bill, the federal government would continue to pay 97 percent of Ohio’s costs to maintain the program before declining to 85 percent in 2020 and 74 percent in 2021 and 2022.

That means state lawmakers in Columbus will have to find the extra money by 2020 to keep the program at its current rate.

Before passage of the 2010 health law known as Obamacare, the federal government provided 74 percent of the costs of Ohio’s children’s insurance program. The 2010 law boosted that percentage to 97 percent, but the higher federal payments are scheduled to end by next week unless Congress acts.

In a statement, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio — one of the bill’s co-sponsors — said the bipartisan measure would give “Ohio families the assurance that their children’s healthcare will be protected for years to come.”

The Senate Finance Committee, whose members include Brown and Republican Rob Portman of Ohio, is expected to pass the bill and send it to the Senate floor. Portman has indicated he will support the measure.

CHIP was created in 1997 as a way to reduce the number of low-income children without health coverage.

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