Congress Spinning It's Wheels On Health Care

Congress ostensibly moved a little bit closer to wrapping up its end-of-year to-do list yesterday but has made no progress toward resolving the myriad health care issues on that list.

CHIP:

• Both chambers have now passed a two-week spending bill, keeping the government open until Dec. 22, when we'll have to do this all again — for real. House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement he was "glad" the House had acted to "fund the Children's Health Insurance Program."
• Reality check: The stopgap bill makes it easier for states to tap existing, leftover CHIP funding. It does not authorize new federal funding for the program. A slew of states will start running out of money early next year, and the pot of money they're able to draw from now won't last very far into 2018.
• The goal is still to pass a larger CHIP funding extension with the longer spending bill, but there's no agreement yet on the substance of that extension.

ACA:

• Ryan has promised conservatives that none of these spending bills will include a restoration of the Affordable Care Act's cost-sharing payments, according to Politico.
• That's one of the policies Sen. Susan Collins had insisted on, and her other ACA-related demand — another, larger set of payments to insurance companies — would be even harder to pass in the House.
• Collins told a local TV station she would consider voting against the final tax bill if she's not happy with it, though the interview only covers her efforts to avert an automatic cut in Medicare payments — not the ACA-related provisions.
• Senate Republican leaders could afford to lose Collins' vote, as long as no one else follows her and Alabama's Senate seat is still in GOP hands whenever a final bill comes to the floor.

The bottom line: The rest of this month is going to be a roller coaster.

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